RECORDER Themes and Objectives

Ocean-floor sediments provide a continuous record of environmental and climatic conditions from the Earth’s past. Our objective is to provide the time dimension for processes in the Earth system beyond the limits of the instrumental record, complementing investigations in the Reactor and Receiver Research Units, and to produce records of processes that are not observable on laboratory timescales. We will investigate selected cases of Earth-system behavior under different climatic and geodynamic boundary conditions (e.g., warmer climates, different sea-level stands and plate-tectonic spreading rates).

Our main objectives / expected achievements are:

Using sedimentary sequences covering key intervals of Earthsystem variability at high temporal resolution, research within Recorder will focus on three themes.

• To assess the sensitivity of the Earth System to perturbations we will decipher the physical
  and biogeochemical responses to large carbon releases, changes in the hydrological cycle
  (incl. monsoon systems), and sea-level variations.
• To determine feedbacks between climatic perturbations, water-column processes, and the
  ocean floor we will evaluate the controls on temporal variability of the biological pump, the
  consequences for carbon cycling in the ocean and carbon deposition at the ocean floor.
• To decipher the reactions of marine ecosystems to perturbations we will determine oceanic
  ecosystem diversity and function under changing climatic and geodynamic conditions.

An or­gan­iz­a­tional over­view of the pro­gram is provided in the fol­low­ing table.