Beschreibung: Dr. Elizabeta Briski has founded a research group at GEOMAR with a Sofia Kovalevskaya Award of the Humboldt Foundation 5th August 2014/Kiel. The Croatian/Canadian biologist Dr. Elizabeta Briski studies the question whether species from certain regions have inherent advantages over other species in colonizing new ecosystems. For her research she has been awarded with the Sofja Kovalevskaja Award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. The award is endowed with 1.6 million euro. With the funding Dr. Briski will set up a junior research group at GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel.

Beschreibung: Umweltsensoren von GEOMAR und HZG wurden offenbar gewaltsam entfernt. 03.09.2019/Kiel. Im Dezember 2016 installierten das GEOMAR Helmholtz-Zentrum für Ozeanforschung Kiel und das Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht in einem Sperrgebiet am Ausgang der Eckernförder Bucht ein Observatorium für Umweltmessungen am Meeresboden. Offenbar wurden die zwei, je 550 und 220 Kilogramm schweren Gestelle am 21. August mit großer Kraft von ihrer Position entfernt. Die Forscher fanden nur noch das zerfaserte Landanschlusskabel. Jetzt hoffen GEOMAR und HZG auf Hinweise, um die wertvollen Geräte zurückzuerhalten.

Beschreibung: Folge 4 des Magazins GEOMAR.tv begleitet das Forschungsschiff METEOR auf seiner Jubiläumsfahrt in den Indischen Ozean. Vor Island ziehen Geologen des GEOMAR Bohrkerne aus dem Meeresboden, um mehr über Vulkanausbrüche in der Vergangenheit zu erfahren -- als Basis für Vorhersagen zukünftiger Eruptionen. Teilnehmer des Programms GAME untersuchen, welche Auswirkungen Mikroplastik auf marine Lebewesen hat. Außerdem: Ein Besuch im Aquarium des GEOMAR, das neue Blogportal oceanblogs.org, Artenvielfalt an Kalten Quellen am Meeresboden und das GEOMAR beim Fest zum Tag der Deutschen Einheit in Stuttgart.

Beschreibung: Mercury is a toxic environmental contaminant originating from both natural and anthropogenic sources. Gaseous elemental mercury (GEM) is relatively long lived in the midlatitudes and can be transported long distances in the atmosphere. In the Polar Regions, mercury can have a much shorter lifetime and is known to experience episodic depletions following polar sunrise in concert with ozone depletion events. A series of photochemically initiated reactions involving halogen radicals is believed to be the primary pathway responsible for converting elemental mercury to oxidized forms of reactive gaseous mercury (RGM) that are subsequently deposited to snow and ice surfaces. Using field measurements from the Ocean-Atmosphere-Sea Ice-Snowpack (OASIS) 2009 field campaign of GEM, RGM, ozone, and a large suite of both inorganic halogen and volatile organic compounds, we calculated steady state Br and Cl atom concentrations and investigated the contribution of Br, BrO, Cl, ClO, O3, and OH to the observed decay of GEM for five cases of apparent first-order decay. The results of this study indicate that Br and BrO are the dominant oxidizers for Arctic mercury depletion events, with Br having the greatest overall contribution to GEM decay. Ozone is likely the primary factor controlling the relative contribution of Br and BrO, as BrO is a product of the reaction of Br with ozone, and reaction with O3 can be the largest Br atom sink. Cl was not found to be significant in any of the studied events; however, this result is highly dependent on the rate constant, for which there is a large range in the literature. Modeled 48 h back trajectories of the mercury depletion events studied here indicate significant time spent over sea ice–covered regions, where the concentration of halogen radicals is likely higher than those estimated using local-scale chemical mole fractions.