Leonardo Tamborrino

My name is Leonardo Tamborrino. I’m a young geologist from Italy and my PhD project title is “Spatio-temporal distribution of cold-water corals in the SE Atlantic”. Cold-water corals (CWC) are the engineers of large deep-sea ecosystems and form unique biodiversity hotspots along most of the world’s continental margins. Over the recent years it has become obvious that CWC often con­struct si­gni­fi­cant sea floor ele­va­tions known as cold-wa­ter co­ral mounds. The­se mounds can also ser­ve as pa­leo-ar­chi­ves with re­spect to the pa­leo­en­vi­ron­men­tal set­ting as well as to the co­ral de­ve­lop­ment. Using ma­te­ri­al new­ly collec­ted from the Na­mi­bi­an and An­go­lan con­ti­nen­tal mar­gins du­ring the M122 ex­pe­di­ti­on in ear­ly 2016, my pro­ject aims to re­con­struct the de­ve­lop­ment of cold-wa­ter co­rals in this re­gi­on in re­s­pon­se to chan­ging en­vi­ron­men­tal con­di­ti­ons through the last gla­ci­al-in­ter­gla­ci­al cy­cle. 

Sin­ce I star­ted my aca­de­mic ca­re­er, my first goal has been to talk about my pas­si­on for geo­lo­gy and ex­plain it to peop­le and friends of different cultural background. I con­sider that the re­se­arch and the stu­dy, main­ly when the to­pic has a world-wide im­port­an­ce, are sterile without an efficient communication. "Once Upon a Time" is a good chance to inform more people and to get them interested in our fascinating and interesting world - to get them interested in to the blue.

Here you can listen to an excerpt of my story "Lophelina".