Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa are densely populated regions that are particularly vulnerable to changing precipitation patterns. Current climate trends show that extreme rainfall events over the Ethiopian highlands cause severe floods in the downstream Nile Valley, such as the flooding of Khartoum in 1999 and 2020. Understanding past precipitation intensity recorded in lake systems under...
The main objective of the project is to develop an integrated digital twin of the Corinth Rift to test several hypotheses on localization of deformation in the present-day area. The distribution of sub-surface data available in the Corinth Rift and 3D potential field modelling using satellite gravity data will be used to build a 3D model of the subsurface. Tomography models of the upper mantle...
Understanding the coupled multi-scale geodynamic processes related to the subduction of the oceanic Nazca Plate beneath the South American Plate is one pre-requisite to better assess seismic hazards in the region. It is essential to identify all relevant forces within the system, such as negative buoyancy of the subducting slab or mechanical coupling between the Andean domain and the Pampean...
Lake Towuti, Indonesia, is an oligomictic system that has undergone significant changes in trophic state and redox conditions since the Mid-Pleistocene. Tropical weathering of lateritic soils supplies the lake with high iron inflows but minimal sulfate, resulting in anoxic ferruginous conditions below 130 m water depth. These conditions make Lake Towuti a suitable analogue for Archean and...
The Late Permian Kupferschiefer Formation, a fine-grained, organic-rich marine sediment in north-central Europe, is one of the world’s most significant sediment-hosted stratabound copper (SSC) deposits. Economically important accumulations of base metals (Cu, Zn, Pb), rare earth and other metals also occur in the underlying Lower Permian sandstones and in the overlying Ca1 carbonate,...
DoctoralDays 2025
Philipp A. Bautz
Sec. 4.4 Hydrology – Junior Reasearch Group HiCliF
Supervisor: Dr. Nivedita Sairam
From dryproofing buildings to installing barriers, private precautionary measures reduce flood losses. Yet their implementation greatly varies with past flood experiences and community risk awareness. Capturing the uptake differences...
Fluvial terraces are key archives in understanding alluvial river long-profile evolution in response to drivers like climatic changes, tectonic activity, or geomorphic events of low frequency but high amplitude like landslides. The Tien Shan is an excellent location to study this due to tectonic uplift associated with the India-Eurasia collision and the numerous glaciers reacting broadly to...
The density of silicate melts is essential for comprehensive modeling of the early Earth's evolution, when the Earth was largely composed of molten silicates encased in a magma ocean. However, fundamental insights into evolution of the density of melts with pressure are often experimentally inaccessible. Nevertheless, some experimental challenges might be overcome by using quenched glasses as...
This study examines how plasma density affects ultra-relativistic electrons (UREs) during geomagnetic storms, using Van Allen Probes observations. We analyze density conditions with both an empirical model and direct spacecraft measurements, and use VERB simulations at very high energies in the URE range to test prediction accuracy. The results show that density variations strongly influence...
Biomarker records from lake sediments provide valuable insights into paleoclimate and its transition. This study focuses on n-alkanes (C27, C29, C31), biomarkers derived from plant waxes, and preserved in lake sediment cores. These compounds serve as proxies to reveal paleoclimate conditions.
Biomarker time series from two nearby sediment records, are compared to reconstruct the climate...
Peatlands cover only ~3% of Earth’s land area yet store nearly a third of global soil carbon. When drained, they release vast amounts of CO₂, but rewetting—an increasingly used restoration strategy—often increases CH₄ emissions. Methane-oxidizing microorganisms (methanotrophs) can mitigate these emissions by acting as a biological CH₄ filter, yet their post-rewetting development, resilience to...
The role of sedimentary heterogeneity on reactive transport processes is becoming increasingly important as closed open-pit lignite mines are converted into post-mining lakes or pumped hydropower storage reservoirs. Flooding of the open pits introduces constant oxygen-rich inflows that reactivate pyrite oxidation within internal mine dumps. A reactive transport model coupling groundwater flow,...
Pore water and groundwater from the containment providing rock zone (CRZ) and surrounding aquifers provide the initial chemical conditions and boundaries for reactive transport simulations of radionuclide migration in the context of the disposal of highly radioactive waste. Hydrochemical differences between these units cause gradients in the pore water profile across the CRZ, which affect...
Anthropogenic activities within the Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU) sector represent a major driver of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and a critical factor in global climate change. Accurate, transparent, and consistent monitoring of land use and land cover (LULC) dynamics is therefore essential to support climate mitigation frameworks such as the Paris Agreement (PA), the...
The adverse impacts of floods are on the rise. Hence, effective adaptation to flood risk is urgently needed. However, defining and quantifying adaptation progress remains challenging. Flood Risk Management Plans (FRMPs), required by the EU Floods Directive (2007/60/EC), are intended to improve and document adaptation progress in Europe. Member States are required to prepare and update these...
River systems are a critical link between the short-term biological and long-term geological global carbon cycles. Fluvially transported organic matter and carbon sequestered by biomass can be stored and transformed in floodplain sediments before being transferred by rivers to long-term sinks in the deep ocean. Carbon fixed by plants from atmospheric CO2 can be stored as soil organic carbon...
Since 2000, the Groß Schönebeck site has served as a multidisciplinary research platform, investigating the extraction of geothermal energy via a ~4.4 km doublet well system. As part of the TRANSGEO project, a study was conducted to explore alternative geothermal development options at the site. The study considered the potential of utilising the existing infrastructure for electricity...
Recent advances in ecosystem monitoring increasingly emphasize flux measurements at larger spatial scales, enabling better integration with satellite remote sensing products and Earth system models. However, alpine ecosystems remained undersampled globally, limiting the ground validation of these model results and satellite-derived carbon estimates. Despite being in one of the most extreme...
The Upper Rhine Graben (URG), situated along the border of France and Germany, is part of the intraplate European Cenozoic Rift System. The graben is widely recognized for its abundant geothermal resources, making it a key region for energy transition initiatives. However, the characterization of the URG’s geothermal potential remains poorly constrained due to its highly variable hydrothermal...
The Earth's magnetic field is characterized by regular and complex changes, reflecting various geodynamo processes. Numerous paleomagnetic studies have provided evidence of multiple geomagnetic polarity reversals and excursions throughout Earth's history. We use data-based paleomagnetic field models such as LSMOD.2, GGFSS70, GGFMB and PADM2M, encompassing different time periods, to analyse the...
Over geological timescales, the release of carbon at tectonic settings has strongly influenced Earth’s long-term climate. Continental rifts, in particular, are thought to play a major role in CO₂ degassing by activating deep carbon reservoirs (Foley and Fischer, 2017). Previous studies even suggest a possible link between rifting and the rise of atmospheric CO₂ during the Cenozoic (Brune et...
Rift systems play a crucial role in the Wilson cycle, where the extension and breakup of continental plates can lead to the formation of new oceans. Earth's rift systems exhibit various stages, from initiation to breakup, with the latter representing 'successful' rifting, as observed along the Atlantic margins. Whereas rifted margins can record successful extensional plate dynamics,...
Previous hydrological research has focused on the physical basis of flood events. Thereby hydrodynamic models are established often ignoring societal and economic factors. This omission can lead to mischaracterization of flood events. Recently, the pathways between flooding and economic damage have therefore been integrated into the models. However, impacts on physical and mental health are...
Drained peatlands have a high potential in mitigating anthropogenic climate change through the process rewetting. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provides a binary distinction of these biotopes: Peatlands remaining Peatlands and Land converted to Peatlands, and associates GHG emission factors to these classes. However, this distinction is not able to grasp the transition...
Understanding the underground temperature distribution is required to determine geothermal energy potential, heat flow, mechanical behaviour of lithological units, and also the long-term safety of heat-producing waste in repositories. As temperature observations in the subsurface are sparse, numerical modelling is utilized to make predictions and risk-assessments. In contrast to statistical...
Winter snow accumulation is important for water supply during the summer in Central Asia. Based on daily snow depth measurements, this research quantifies historical changes in snow depth in the Chirchik catchment (Tien Shan region, Uzbekistan) from 1963 to 2023. All snow parameters exhibit a trend towards shorter snow cover and less snow. A more pronounced reduction in the seasonal snow depth...
Deep geothermal boreholes require robust monitoring of extreme downhole conditions to ensure safe and efficient production. Conventional tools provide only snapshots in time and space, creating an information gap, while fiber optic sensing offers continuous data collection without well intervention. At the Geothermal Site Schäftlarnstraße in Munich, Germany, the fiber optic infrastructure...
Glacier ice algae of the genus Ancylonema are the main primary producers on glacier ice surfaces, where they thrive under harsh conditions, including high irradiation and low nutrient availability. They produce the dark pigment purpurogallin to protect themselves from high irradiation, thereby darkening large areas of the ice surface. This leads to a reduction in ice surface albedo and an...
The presence of carbonates in the mantle is supported by various evidence from seismology, experiments, inclusions in diamonds , and calculations [1]. While the pressure-induced structural changes in crystalline carbonates are relatively well understood, little is known about the P-induced structural changes in carbonate melts due to technical challenges in direct measurements of melt...
Weathering of volcanic rocks accounts for approximately one third of global CO₂ consumption in the silicate weathering cycle. Tropical volcanic islands contribute to this process due to their extreme denudation rates, thought to be mainly driven by high and episodic precipitation, which may sustain high weathering fluxes. However, how total denudation (D) divides into erosion (E) and...
Vegetation Optical Depth (VOD), derived from passive microwave remote sensing, is increasingly recognized as a valuable proxy for vegetation water content (VWC) and above-ground biomass (AGB). However, challenges remain in physically interpreting VOD signals due to the entangled influences of canopy structure and dynamic water content, especially across complex, heterogeneous forest...
Population growth, climate change, and a lack of infrastructure have contributed to an increase in water demand and groundwater exploitation in urban and rural Afghanistan, resulting in significant ground subsidence. Based on a 7-year-long Sentinel-1 radar-interferometric time-series (2015–2022), we assess country-wide subsidence rates. Of particular focus are urban Kabul and the growing...
Flood risks pose increasing threats to societal every-day life resulting in cascading impacts on the economy and burden on health and wellbeing of flood-affected populations. In growing urban areas, flooding contributes to increased disease burden through exposure to microbial pathogens. Risk assessments focusing exclusively on economic costs overlook these complex and interconnected impacts...
The rapid growth of space-based applications and the space industry requires closer examination of ionospheric irregularities that affect radio signal propagation used for satellite telecommunications and navigation. This research will focus on large-to-small scale plasma irregularities occurring in the ionospheric F-layer. This PhD research aims to study the occurrence climatology, physical...
Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) rely on engineered fracture networks to facilitate fluid circulation and heat exchange in low-permeability, high-temperature rock formations. Unlike the conventional gel-proppant hydraulic fracturing techniques used in hydrocarbon extraction, many EGS projects employ hydraulic shear stimulation to enhance permeability. This method leverages the self-propping...
Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) are one of the most important techniques for positioning, navigation and the realization of the International Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF), which forms the basis for many coordinate-related applications in the geosciences. The basic principle of GNSS is to measure the time difference between the transmission of a microwave signal at the...
Injecting high-pressure fluid into deep reservoirs could promote natural fault reactivation and induce damaging earthquakes. Recent observations suggest that fluid injection rate and effective confining pressure (ECP) could affect the slip behavior; however, their coupling effect on slip patterns is still unclear. We report triaxial laboratory experiments aimed to investigate the combined...
The growing volume and frequency of streaming remote sensing data present challenges for real-time modeling and forecasting. Traditional batch learning is unsuitable for such dynamic environments, while standard online learning frameworks, though more adaptive, face key limitations. These include one-step-ahead forecasting, prediction latency due to retraining dependencies, and vulnerability...
The subsurface of North-Central Europe has been shaped by repeated glaciations, which have changed underground pressure, temperature, and water flow over thousands of years. Understanding these changes is important for managing groundwater, using geothermal energy, and safely storing materials like CO₂.
In this project, we are building a digital twin of the region’s subsurface to study how it...
Microbial adaptation to high CO2, especially through evolution at the genomic level, can provide insights into the metabolism and survival strategies that may have been employed by the primitive life forms on early, CO2-rich Earth. From the natural high CO2 subsurface environment in Hartousov, Eger rift area, Czech Republic, we isolated an active methanogen strain, Methanosphaerula subterranea...
Soil formation in Antarctica begins immediately after the retreat of ice and snow. Because the continent is almost completely devoid of higher plants and burrowing animals, these processes are shaped primarily by microorganisms. This unique setting provides an opportunity to study the direct role of microbial communities in the earliest stages of pedogenesis. Previous studies have shown that...
Geomechanical–numerical modeling aims to predict the 3-D in situ stress field for example to assess the distance to failure of larger rock volumes. However, model calibration typically relies only on few stress magnitude measurements that are expensive to acquire. In addition, these in-situ measurements represent meter-scale conditions and may not capture the stress state over larger rock...
Sub-daily GNSS positioning provides a unique opportunity to monitor crustal deformation at timescales relevant to transient geophysical processes. However, the reliability of such observations is limited by the presence of correlated noise and modeling deficiencies, which complicate the detection of small deformation signals. In this study, we assess the noise characteristics of kinematic GNSS...
In recent years, lithium (Li), which is mostly used for battery components, has emerged as one of the most promising elements for exploration and extraction from underground reserves and used for further industrial applications. In particular, the co-production of Li and heat from geothermal brines offers the advantage of minimal additional environmental impact of Li mining and increasing...
Glacial rivers play an important role in the biogeochemical cycles of macro- and micronutrients. Abiotic and biotic processes in supra-, sub- and proglacial environments enrich meltwaters with dissolved and particulate nutrient species that may undergo substantial changes in concentration and speciation along glacial rivers due to lateral inputs and in-channel processes. Once delivered to...
Snow algae belong to the photoautotroph freshwater microorganisms successfully thriving on semi-permanent to permanent snow and ice fields around the world. They are well known for their large, colorful blooms in cryospheric environments exposed to extreme conditions such as low temperatures and high irradiance in the summer month. Apart from green chlorophyll, other pigments such as...
Underground hydrogen storage (UHS) in deep saline aquifers provides a viable approach for large-scale energy storage and mitigates the intermittency of renewable energy sources. The effectiveness of UHS depends on the complex interactions among geomechanical, multiphase fluid flow, and geochemical processes. Cyclic injection and withdrawal operations cause periodic changes in pore pressure,...
The solar wind, a stream of charged particles originating from the Sun, poses significant risks to technology and astronauts. It is driven by large structures on the solar surface like coronal holes and active regions, which can be identified in extreme ultra-violet (EUV) solar images several days before they become geoeffective. In this work, we propose to use a distributional regression...
Sediment-hosted ore deposits are major resources for base metals like Zn, Pb and Cu. These deposits form by basin-scale flow of hydrothermal fluids through permeable aquifers and fault structures, incorporating metals from source rocks and transporting them to a deposition site where metals precipitate as sulfide minerals due to fluid reduction and/or fluid mixing. Metal enrichment in...
The chemical evolution of the primordial Earth during the transition from a molten to a solid state is largely controlled by density. The density contrast between the solid and liquid phases determines whether the crystallized particles sink or float. Geophysical observations of low-velocity zones, infer the existence of hydrous melt at the upper mantle transition, but experimental density...
Since the last eruption of the Laacher See volcano (LSV) in the East Eifel volcanic field (EEVF) around 12.9 kyr ago, the volcanic activity beneath the LSV can still be traced by several gas emissions in the lake and its surroundings. This continuous gas flux is related to CO2 originating from the magmatic system in the upper mantle to the shallow crust at about 10 - 30 km depth, from where...
Ocean circulation plays a crucial role in redistributing heat and carbon globally, influencing climate dynamics. While satellite altimetry and in-situ observations provide valuable data, a comprehensive understanding of three-dimensional ocean circulation, particularly at deeper levels, remains a significant challenge.
Ocean-induced magnetic fields (OIMF) are generated by the motion of...
The eastern flank of Mt. Etna volcano poses a significant threat of a tsunamigenic landslide to the local population: at centimeter/year rates it is creeping and collapsing eastward into the Strait of Messina. But the geometry and depth of the sliding surface are yet poorly understood, with multiple conflicting models proposed over the years.
We analyze satellite-geodetic time-series from...
Highlighted by the July 2021 floods in central Europe, climate change contributes to an increase in the occurrence of devastating and unprecedented flood events. The floods exhibited magnitudes far exceeding the commonly used worst-case scenario of the 1-in-100-year flood, illustrating that this standard may no longer be adequate. However, the lack of data on the physical mechanisms and...
The convergent plate boundary along the Chilean Andes forms a natural laboratory for studying the role of the seismic cycle in the formation of orogens. Geological records and modern geodetic data provide evidence that crustal deformation occurs both in the forearc (at the Nazca–South American plate interface) and in the backarc (east of the Andes) where crustal strain with the potential to...
Due to the currently increasing demand of renewable energy, the exploration of the crystalline basement for geothermal purposes plays in the future an important role. The use of fractured and permeable crystalline rocks for geothermal purposes will be possible once the GeoLaB (Underground Research Lab for geothermal energy) will be built.
Since January 2025 the first research project GeoDT...
Calcium carbonate (CaCO₃) minerals are widely distributed in organisms as skeletons and hard tissues. This biomineralization process, which controls the formation of CaCO₃ in nature, often proceeds via amorphous calcium carbonate (ACC), a metastable precursor phase. However, the mechanisms of ACC stability and transformation remain unclear, particularly the impact of organic phosphates, which...
The mid-Proterozoic stratigraphy of the McArthur Basin (Australia) contains some of the most well-preserved sedimentary rocks of Precambrian age, which also host giant, clastic dominant (CD-type) massive sulfide Zn deposits. Previous studies on CD-type deposits have investigated δ34S values in order to reconstruct sulfide precipitation pathways; however, δ34S values can be influenced by...
The collision between the Indian and Eurasian Plates induces simultaneous widespread crustal shortening and extension in the Tibetan Plateau. Collision-induced crustal deformation at regional, orogenic scale is compartmentalized into networks of active faults of locally diverse tectonic regimes. Yet, the correlation between triaxial strain and deformation patterns requires better...
Early warning systems (EWSs) are recognized globally as the most efficient and cost-effective strategy for mitigating debris flow risk. Most contemporary EWS rely on Rainfall Intensity-Duration (ID) thresholds due to their extended lead time. However, two critical limitations challenge the efficacy of conventional methods: data scarcity in remote or hazardous areas often precludes the...
Background: Floods are the most frequent natural hazard in Vietnam, exacerbating mental health challenges such as depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among affected communities. Despite growing evidence of psychosocial impacts, longitudinal data on recovery trajectories and the effectiveness of multi-level mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS)...
The Earth’s outer radiation belt is a highly dynamic region populated by energetic electrons that can pose potential threats to the satellites running in outer space. Among the most dramatic variations is the radiation belt dropout, defined as MeV electron fluxes drop by orders of magnitude within a short timescales. Two main mechanisms have been proved to explain these losses: electromagnetic...
Earthquakes are assumed to be unpredictable, but their forecasting may improve if signatures of preparatory processes can be reliably identified through continuous monitoring. Recent results suggest that years to months before large earthquakes, progressive rock weakening can lead to seismicity localization and coalescence, facilitating fault rupture. If this holds generally, comprehensive,...
The outer radiation belt of Earth is a highly dynamic and complex system. Chorus waves, naturally occurring plasma waves, are considered among the most important drivers of electron acceleration and precipitation in this region. They have in two distinct bands based on their frequency: Upper Band Chorus (UBC; 0.5 fce < f < fce) and Lower Band Chorus (LBC; 0.05 fce < f < 0.5 fce), where fce is...
The forcing exerted over subsurface reservoir during operations to extract geothermal heat causes changes in, for instance, the subsurface pressure and temperature state, which can lead to induced seismicity. Therefore, an appropriate consideration of the expected measurable response of the reservoir is needed to design reliable monitoring systems. Computer assisted simulations of...
Lake Van, the world’s largest soda lake, is highly sensitive to hydrological balance, and past lake-level changes directly reflect variations in the precipitation-to-evaporation ratio. During the transition from MIS 6 to MIS 5e (the Last Interglacial), sediment proxies record rising lake levels and environmental shifts are preserved in varved deposits. These annually deposited sediments allow...
