A research titled “Stanol to sterol ratios in late Quaternary sediments from southern California : An indicator for continuous variability of the oxygen minimum zone” written by Masatoshi Nakakuni of the Graduate School of Engineering, Environmental Engineering for Symbiosis Course, Organic Geochemistry Lab doctoral program and co-authors Chieko Dairiki, master’s degree holder, Gurpreet Kaur, doctoral program, and advising professor Shuichi Yamamoto of the same lab, was published in the academic journal “Organic Geochemistry” and was chosen as one of the Most Download Articles in the past 90 days.

　“Organic Geochemistry” is an academic journal that holds the highest appraisals in the field of organic geochemistry, and the paper of Nakakuni and coauthors was published in the September 2017 edition. In summary, using the sediment core (column sediment) from the southern California offshore (1,000 meters deep) collected through the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) and by analyzing various sterol and stanol found from different angles, researchers were able to reconstruct the fluctuation of redox events that were recorded to have been occurring in the East Pacific Ocean the past 50 thousand years.

　Nakakuni reflected upon the publication of the research and it being one of the Most Download Articles.
“This research could not have been completed without the support from many people. I am greatly honored and happy that our completed paper is being recognized by many people. With this paper as one of the starting points, I hope to become a person who can further contribute to this field of organic geochemistry.”