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Jan Schröder
Report of GLOMAR PhD student Jan Schröder about his participation in the Goldschmidt2013 conference on Geochemistry, Florence, Italy, 25 – 30 August 2013
During the last week of August I was able to participate in the Goldschmidt2013 conference, held in Florence, Italy. The Goldschmidt conference is the primary international meeting for Geoscientists. It is held annual since 1988, jointly by the Geochemical Society and the European Association of Geochemistry, and it has become the most important forum for recent developments and advances in Geochemistry and related fields – with more than 4,000 participants this year.
The five days of this conference were marked by a scientific program of high diversity and interdisciplinarity – with over 200 sessions covering diverse topics – including (past) climate change, Biosphere-Atmosphere interactions, extraterrestrial Geochemistry, Mineralogy, earth resources and innovations in analytical techniques.
For me, most interesting was the theme of Biogeochemistry, were I had the chance to present my project during the session of microbial life in marine sediments. In this study - entitled “Intact polar lipids and diagenetic processes in sub-seafloor sediments in the Black Sea“ – we investigated abundance and activity of microorganisms in Black Sea sediments, applying a combined data set of DNA based studies, chemical profiles, sedimentological parameters and lipid biomarker analysis. Despite an extensive conference program I had the time for inspiring discussions with other attendees as it is only possible in face-to-face meetings and the personal-scientific ambience of conferences. The scientific exchange and comments were inspiring and are helping me now to develop my PhD project further. The Goldschmidt2013 conference itself has been excellent organized and realized and the scenery of the beautiful renaissance city of Florence contributed to a successful meeting.
I want to thank GLOMAR for the financial support for this conference, allowing me to take part in such a valuable exchange during Goldschmidt2013 conference. This was a great contribution to my PhD project and another step into the international scientific community of Geochemistry.
The five days of this conference were marked by a scientific program of high diversity and interdisciplinarity – with over 200 sessions covering diverse topics – including (past) climate change, Biosphere-Atmosphere interactions, extraterrestrial Geochemistry, Mineralogy, earth resources and innovations in analytical techniques.
For me, most interesting was the theme of Biogeochemistry, were I had the chance to present my project during the session of microbial life in marine sediments. In this study - entitled “Intact polar lipids and diagenetic processes in sub-seafloor sediments in the Black Sea“ – we investigated abundance and activity of microorganisms in Black Sea sediments, applying a combined data set of DNA based studies, chemical profiles, sedimentological parameters and lipid biomarker analysis. Despite an extensive conference program I had the time for inspiring discussions with other attendees as it is only possible in face-to-face meetings and the personal-scientific ambience of conferences. The scientific exchange and comments were inspiring and are helping me now to develop my PhD project further. The Goldschmidt2013 conference itself has been excellent organized and realized and the scenery of the beautiful renaissance city of Florence contributed to a successful meeting.
I want to thank GLOMAR for the financial support for this conference, allowing me to take part in such a valuable exchange during Goldschmidt2013 conference. This was a great contribution to my PhD project and another step into the international scientific community of Geochemistry.
