The goal of the working group Palaeoceanography and Marine Sedimentology led by Dr. Stephan Steinkeis to unravel past oceanic and climatic conditions in order to improve our understanding of Earth’s climate system and their predictability in the future. Current research activities, for example, comprise the evolution and variability of the East Asian and Indonesian-Australian monsoons.

We use marine sediment cores recovered from the sea floor to infer past oceanic and climate conditions.Marine sediments record environmental information in their chemical, sedimentological and microfossil composition.We use marine sediment cores that cover a time span ranging from orbital to multi-decadal time scales.

Photo credits Stephan Steinke

The isotopic (e.g. oxygen isotopes) and trace element composition(e.g. Mg/Ca) of planktonic and benthic foraminifera as well as planktonic foraminifera assemblages are mainly used to decipher past oceanic and climate evolution and variability.