Mission Statement
We are dedicated to fundamental research to identify and quantify dynamic sediment processes, such as erosion, sediment transport and deposition that shape the world's landscapes and oceans. Such processes are governed by the dynamic response of sediments to geological and environmental forces acting on timescales from seconds to Millions of years, and are archived in the geological records of mountains, lakes and oceans.
We sedimentological, geophysical, geochemical, geotechnical, data science and numerical-modeling techniques to investigate the stratigraphic record and study rates and states of Earth-system processes to advance our understanding and predictability of complex interactions between tectonics, climate and anthropogenic impacts, to meet the challenges society faces as stewards of our changing planet. In particular, we aim at characterizing, establishing and deciphering high-resolution multi-proxy event stratigraphy records of subaquatic sediment mass-transport and soft-sediment-deformation deposits; and at advancing our understanding, quantification and predictability of the causal mechanism behind that led to the emplacement of such event deposits.
For our research, we consider it very important to think and act in interdisciplinary "crossing-boundary" domains, which reflects our vision to transfer knowledge over boundaries where different "classical" geoscientific research disciplines typically meet. One unifying theme in our work is to:
Study sedimentary archives in high spatio-temporal resolution to understand & quantify underlying processes.
For instance, with respect to one of our focus-activities related to Geohazard, rather than looking into the geological records to identify past climatic and tectonics activity from event-deposits in the stratigraphic record in a descriptive and qualitative way, this message reflects our aim to deliver quantitative constraints on magnitude-frequency relationships for reliable hazard assessments, along with a profound process-based understanding of the underlying driving forces to evaluate mitigation strategies.
Groupphoto January 2024
From left to right: Michi Strasser, Arne Ramisch, Jana Molenaar, Jasper Moernaut, Charlotte Pizer, Katleen Wils, Hannah Braun, Pauline Cornard, Marcel Ortler, Björn Schrader, Markus Niederstätter, Michelle Muthre, Valentina Moreno Allende, Stephanie Benischke, Laura Schley, Sarah Mosser, Gerald Degenhart
Groupphoto Summer 2023
From left to right: Michi Strasser, Jasper Moernaut, Marcel Ortler, Gerald Degenhart, Björn Schrader, Hannah Braun, Valentina Moreno Allende, Pauline Cornard, Emmanuel & Michelle Muthre
Groupphoto January 2021:
(top left to right): Andrea Fraco, Michi Strasser, Maddalena Sammartini, Pauline Cornard,
(Middle left to right); Patrick Oswald, Marcel Ortler, Jyh-Jaan Steven Huang, Dominik Jeager, Jana Molenaar,
(bottom left to right): Yin Lu, Jasper Moernaut, Christoph Daxer
Groupphoto July 2020:
from left to right: Pauline Cornard, Patrick Oswald, Maddalena Sammartini, Tobias Schwestermann, Jana Molenaar, Marcel Ortler, Christoph Daxer, Jasper Moernaut, Dominik Jeager, Steven Huang, Gerald Degenhard, Michael Strasser
Groupphoto October 2017:
from left to right: Michael Strasser, Tobias Schwestermann, Jasper Moernaut, Christoph Daxer, Patrick Oswald,
Moritz Liebl, Jana Molenaar, Maddalena Sammartini, Steven Huang and Arata Kioka.