Earth History

During the Ordovician, the geological past around 450 million years, the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere was about eightfold of the current level. So far, it has been difficult to reproduce the abrupt cooling of the climate followed by the Ordovician glaciation. A new study published in Nature Communications shows that the growing land cover by lichens and mosses led to weathering, a process absorbing carbon dioxide and subsequently reducing its atmospheric concentration. mehr

Junior scientist Benjamin Bruisten from our Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry receives a prestigious geobiology stipend from the US American Agouron Institute. The stipend allows Bruisten to pursue an interdisciplinary Postdoc project nested between modern biological processes and ancient rocks. mehr

The advance of certain algae was probably one key contribution to an almost complete glaciation of the Earth millions of years ago. The consequent rise in emissions of organic cloud-condensation nuclei led to increased cloudiness. Thereby, they likely contributed crucially to the cooling of the climate, because clouds reduce solar radiation on the Earth´s surface. This was discovered by a team of scientists in a new study to be published today in the renowned journal Nature Geoscience. mehr

MPI-BGC members Lennart van Maldegem and Christian Hallmann (Paleobiogeochemistry Group) obtained precious samples during a field expedition to the Grand Canyon. Together with colleagues from University Brest (Pierre Sansjofre) and Boston College (Paul Strother), they undertook an arduous two-day hike to reach the bottom of the canyon. mehr

Christian Hallmann is interested in the paleoenvironmental conditions that influenced the evolution of early life during the Precambrian. In particular, he studies paleoceanographic conditions during the late Archean and the Neoproterozoic by analyzing lipid biomarkers preserved in ancient sedimentary rocks. By joining MPI-BGC in January 2012, he helps to increase our activities in marine palaeo-biogeochemistry research. He will also have an experimental research group located at the MARUM in Bremen. mehr