Research Interests:

My research is focused on the most fundamental aspects of how life and Earth interacted throughout possibly the last 4.4 billion years. The essential mechanisms are, on the one hand, that organisms catalyse biogeochemical processes otherwise inhibited under Earth surface conditions and therefore alter global geochemical cycles. On the other hand, biotic effects on mineral formation have fundamentally impacted Earth’s geological record.

Understanding these interactions requires an interdisciplinary approach, using insights from geobiology, sedimentology, (micro)biology, (bio)geochemistry, palaeontology, mineralogy, and environmental sciences. My studies include ongoing processes in modern systems, signatures in the geological record, and process-oriented computer models, with the overarching goal to gain fundamental knowledge about the role that life has played in Earth’s exogenic cycle.

News:

New Publication (April 2023): Dolomit: Nanostrukturen im Schlamm des Neusiedler Sees nachgewiesen

New modelling paper in Frontiers in Earth Science

Projects:

• Simulating biogeochemical processes with numerical models
• Diagenetic imprints in marine sediments as signatures of a dynamic deep biosphere
• Studying primary Triassic dolomites using high-resolution petrographic and mineralogical tools
• Implications on early Earth's conditions from modern analogues
• Reconstruction of Tethyan environments