Research Interests

I have a broad scientific profile, that covers fossil bones, high pressure rocks, early Earth, cosmochemistry and climate. For the past years my research focused more and more on the oxygen cycle, including the water cycle and chemical sediments. Specifically, I use triple oxygen isotope systematics, which provide a second dimension to the classic oxygen isotope system to quantify mass fluxes. For instance, this allows reconstructing present and past water cycles including paleo-relative humidity that can be derived from the isotopic composition of mineral bound water, e.g. in gypsum. Oxyanions such as PO₄^3-, SO₄^3-, CO₃^2- or Si(OH)₄ dissolved in water exchange isotopes with H₂O but can also inherit kinetic isotope effects from their formation mechanisms. My goal is to fully understand the underlying processes in order to use the respective chemical sediments as faithful archives to reconstruct Earth’s history. My quantitative approach is useful to trace any oxygen bearing compound in nature and is thus suitable for a broad variety of topics.

• Triple oxygen isotope variations in
  • silicate rocks,
  • meteoric water,
  • chemical precipitates (sulfates, phosphates, carbonates)
• The geochemistry of fossil bones
• Vital effects in carbonates
• Metabolic water
• Phosphate cycle in soils
• Paleoclimate
• Lu-Hf geochronology
• Cosmochemistry

Award

2021
Victor Moritz Goldschmid Preis (DMG)

2011
Bernd Rendel-Preis (DFG)

Media

• A CO2 greenhouse efficiently warmed the early Earth
• Revealing the climate of snowball Earth
• Wie die Erde bewohnbar wurde