Mark McMenamin's research focuses on the origin of animals and other forms of complex life, the origin of land plants, and the Snowball Earth glaciation. His 2016 book Dynamic Paleontology (Springer) provides a new framework for the analysis and interpretation of ancient life. Mark's students are known for publishing in peer-review journals while undergraduates. In 2008, Mark received (as director of the Keck Geology project to study the rocks of the Boston Basin) a teaching award from Southern Utah University for student project excellence. Mark named the supercontinent Rodinia in The Emergence of Animals (Columbia University Press). His research is featured in the History Channel’s program How the Earth Was Made. His concept of Hypersea: Life on Land was called one of "seven ideas that could change the world" by Discover Magazine.