Sebastian Hoetzel

I spent my research stay at the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of Liverpool, UK. During the stay I worked close together with Fabienne Marret who is an expert on fossil dinoflagellates of the sub- to tropical regions of Africa.

My goals for the research stay were to get familiar with the dinoflagellate taxa in occurring in the Miocene to Pliocene samples from the IODP site 1081 off Namibia and to generate my data by counting them. Fabienne Marret helped me to identify most of my unknown taxa and she gave me confidence about my other already identified dinoflagellate types so that I could complete my data. However, we could not identify all taxa so that Fabienne introduced me to her dinoflagellate network by contacting further experts (e.g. Martin Head and Stijn de Schepper) who clarified most problems. For two further unknown types I will meet Michael Schreck and Jens Matthiesen from the AWI Bremerhaven who have experience with these types. All together the data are very promising and indicate four different periods representing temperature or salinity and nutrients-driven changes over the Miocene to Pliocene time. From a scientific point of view the research stay deepened my knowledge of fossil dinoflagellates and introduced me to the dinoflagellate-community which might have a positive influence on my career.

Beside the scientific outcome the research stay enabled me to see generally how life and work aboard could be and in particular how it is in UK. I came to the conclusion that life in UK would be more than just an option for me which is in fact a nice by-product of my stay.

I thank GLOMAR for funding my research stay so that my PhD project could benefit largely by completing my data sets. Additionally, I thank GLOMAR for the vulnerable chance to life in a different culture and to get an idea how it would be to work in UK.