Ongoing Projects

Landscape and climate evolution in arid to hyperarid climates - Atacama Desert (SFB / CRC 1211, "Earth Evolution at the Dry Limit" -  PI C04)

• Using terrestrial sediment archives to reconstruct paleoclimate and surface activity in hyperarid environments.
• Terrestrial Cosmogenic Nuclide (TCN) dating of geomorphological features (alluvial fans, shorelines, inactive fluvial channel, tectonic fault scarps) to reconstruct past climate variations in hyperarid environments.
• Determining erosion/denudation rates in hyperarid environments using multiple cosmogenic nuclide isotopes (¹⁰Be, ²⁶Al, ²¹Ne)
• Inferring existence and duration of hiatuses in sedimentary archives using cosmogenic nuclides
• Reconstructing incision histories of fluvial drainages
• Interaction between aggradation and degradation processes in response to tectonic and/or climate events in the El Salvador area.
• CaSO4 dynamics and related landscape evolution

Noble Gas Mass Spectroscopy

• Build-up and routine application of ²¹Ne analysis in the new established Cologne Lab for Noble Gases
• Establishment of He analysis for cosmogenic nuclide and mantle/crust geochemistry applications
• Liquid extraction procedure for noble gases