Permafrost Archives, Paleoclimate and Landscape Dynamics
Objectives
Permafrost is a widespread distributed climate-driven phenomenon of arctic and subarctic regions. Due to long-term stable permafrost conditions frozen deposits preserves indicators of landscape evolution, which are considered as palaeo-environmental archives like sediment core sequences of limnic and deep marine deposits, and glacier ice cores. Numerous fossil bioindicators documenting climate and environmental variations are well-preserved in permanently frozen state (see Methods). Sediment features reflect changes of accumulation and transport processes and finally periglacial landscape dynamics. Palaeogeographical information can be inferred from relief surface structures. Ice structures in permafrost deposits are products of freezing and thawing processes during permafrost development. The chemical composition of ground ice reflects supra-regional precipitation signals as well as local interrelations between ground ice and sediments. Finally, the geochronological determination is the essential fundament for stratigraphical classifications. The main study regions of our working group are at NE Siberia (Russia), Northwest Territories (Canada), and Alaska (USA) (see Expeditions).
In addition to sedimentary approaches, the biogeochemical aspect of organic matter and its characteristic in frozen deposits will be a research topic in future. To gain information about recent processes, data and methods of remote sensing and geographical information systems (GIS) are used.
The research topics of our working group are embedded in the Helmholtz Research Programme "Polar regions and Coasts in a changing Earth System (PACES)". More precisely this group is part of PACES topic 1.5 (The Role of degrading Permafrost and Carbon Turnover in the Coastal, Shelf and Deep-Sea Environment and PACES 3.1 (Past Polar Climate and inter-hemispheric Coupling).
Projects
Research Projects
- POLYGON: Polygons in tundra wetlands - State and dynamics under climate variability in Polar Regions
- The Terrestrial Climate Archive of El'gygytgyn Meteorite Crater (Northeast Siberia)
PhD Projects
- Permafrost landforms on Earth: Implications for periglacial landscape evolution on Mars (Mathias Ulrich)
- Structures of permafrost degradation as indicators of environmental variations - morphometric analyses and process simulation (Anne Morgenstern)
- Paleoenvironmental dynamics on the eastern Beringian edge (Michael Fritz)
- Old Carbon in Permafrost - Characteristics, Availability and Balance (Jens Strauss)
- Permafrost degradation and thermokarst dynamics (Josefine Lenz)
Diploma, Master and Bachelor Projects
- Sedimentological and paleo-ecological study on a paleo lake deposits from Buor Khaya peninsula, Siberia (Eichhorn, L.)
Project Collaborations
Herzschuh, U. (AWI) Joint German-Russian laboratory for studies of environmental dynamics in the terrestrial Arctic (Biological Monitoring - BioM)
Group Members
Eichhorn, Luise, Diploma student (AWI and TU Dresden)
Fritz, Michael, PhD Student (AWI and Potsdam University)
Lenz, Josefine, PhD Student (AWI and Potsdam University)
Morgenstern, Anne, PhD student (AWI and Potsdam University)
Schirrmeister, Dr. Lutz, Group leader
Schwamborn, Dr. Georg, Post doc
Strauss, Jens, PhD student (AWI and Potsdam University)
Ulrich, Mathias, PhD student (AWI and Potsdam University)
Wetterich, Dr. Sebastian, Post doc
Contributions from other Working Groups
Andreev, Dr. Andrei, Pollen (University of Cologne)
Bastian, Ute, Technician, Sedimentology Laboratory (AWI)
Eulenburg, Antje, Technician, Geochemistry Laboratory (AWI)
Meyer, Dr. Hanno, Stable Isotopes (AWI)
Müller, Gerald, Field Logistics (AWI)
Former Group Members
Siegert, Dr. Christine (retired, christine.siegert(at)awi.de)
Kienast, Dr. Frank (Senckenberg Research Institute, Quaternary Palaeontology Research Station, fkienast(at)senckenberg.de)
Andreev, Dr. Andrei (University of Cologne, Institute of Geology and Mineralogy, andrei.andreev(at)awi.de)
Grosse, Dr. Guido (Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks)
Publications
Peer-reviewed Publications of the Working group members from 2000 to 2011
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Last Update 07.10.2011 by Jens Strauss
