Research Interests

My current research focuses on past dust transport in the Pacific sector of the Southern Ocean. For this purpose, I extract the dust fraction from sediments deposited over many thousand years. This fraction is then analyzed for its rare earth element content and the isotopic composition of strontium, neodymium and lead. Such geochemical data then provides information about the sources of dust in the South Pacific region which enables us to identify transport pathways. Such pathways are, per definition, tied to atmospheric dynamics. Thus, this work uses dust to better constrain atmospheric variability during phases of severe climate re-organisation such as across glacial-interglacial cycles.