Ruth Esther Delina is currently 2nd year PhD student in the Interface Geochemistry research group at GFZ Potsdam since October 2020. She is funded by her personal DAAD PhD scholarship until 2024. For her PhD project, she investigates chromium sequestration and release in mining-impacted iron-rich tropical soils and sediments. Check out her profile here: GFZ Profile | ResearchGate. Contents of this blog are unaltered and posted as is to preserve the voice and own ideas of Ruth. It’s been 6 years since I graduated from my bachelors. Out of my answers to “what’s next ..read more

Zhengzheng Chen is currently 2nd year PhD student in the Interface Geochemistry research group at GFZ Potsdam. She joined us in November 2020 as a Chinese Scholarship Council (CSC) PhD scholar and will be with us until 2024. Her PhD project focuses on the interaction between iron minerals and organic carbon in Arctic peat soils. Check out her profile here: GFZ Profile | ResearchGate. Contents of this blog are unaltered and posted as is to preserve the voice and own ideas of Zhengzheng Chen. It’s been a year and a half since I started my PhD, and I can still remembe ..read more

My GFZ collaborator Laura V. Krone just published her first paper from her PhD as part of the EarthShape project. From the drilling campaign in the semi-arid study site in Santa Gracia in Chile, we found multiple weathering fronts at various depths, even reaching as deep as 76 m from the surface. The denudation rate from this site result in a slow turnover time of the entire weathering zone (~7 million years). Despite this, we show that deep weathering is still possible. (a) Schematic core log. (b) Acoustic televiewer image of the unrolled borehole wall. (c) Core photos of (1) soil and saproli ..read more

Some “free” time while resting from sample pellet preparation in the glovebox. Last February 2020, I went to Diamond Light Source in UK together with Liane, Dominique and Thaïs to do Fe and As K-edge EXAFS measurements at the I-20 beamline. We were mainly looking at redox-active Fe-bearing minerals and their interactions with arsenic, phosphate and silica. Synchrotron beamtime is always an exciting time for me because I get to shoot high energy X-rays to my (synthetic) Fe-bearing minerals. Plus, it allows me to understand the crystal structure of these minerals, and the nature of the nutrients ..read more

Starting February 2020, I will start as a postdoctoral scientist in my current research group (Interface Geochemistry). I’ll be working on mineral-organic matter interactions in Arctic peat soils for the next 3 years. Looking forward to finally doing fieldwork in Iceland (and potentially Greenland ..read more

I successfully defended my doctoral dissertation (Green rust formation and reactivity with arseic species) at the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany last January 17, 2020 with a grade of summa cum laude (mit Auszeichnung). The first part of my defense was a 30-min presentation of my dissertation, covering a brief introduction and the most significant findings of my projects. It went really smooth and I felt great with the pace of my presentation. After that, it was followed by the “examination” part, which consisted of 30-min of scientific questions and discussion with my doctoral examination ..read more