skip to content

Funded Projects

Second Call for Proposals (Funding Period: 2018-2021)

Bau, Michael (Bremen) Non-detrital Gallium and Aluminum in Early Precambrian Marine Chemical Sediments and the Potential Use of the Ga/Al Ratio as a Geochemical Proxy for Metal Sources and Relative Fluxes to the Early Ocean
Carone, Ludmila & Noack, Lena (Heidelberg/Berlin) The Archaean Earth - Coupling between geodynamics and 3D climate modelling
Duda, Jan-Peter & Reitner, Joachim & Thiel, Volker (Göttingen) Kerogen in Archean rocks: Biotic vs abiotic signatures – Pt. II
Duda, Jan-Peter Reaching for life in the distant past – deciphering the geobiology of modern and ancient hydrothermal sulfides (Emmy-Noether Group)
Dziggel, Annika (Aachen) Terrane spotting – Testing models for the evolution of Earth’s first continents
Fischer-Gödde, Mario (Köln) Constraining the timing of volatile arrival on Earth using Ru and Mo isotopes in the Archean mantle
Gehringer, Michelle (Kaiserslautern) Reconciling biological and geochemical perspectives on the production of oxygen on early Earth
Hallmann, Christian (Bremen/MPI Jena) The rise and fall of Archean atmospheric oxygen — Did temporary carbon burial as Fe(ox)–DOM complexes play a modulating role?
Heubeck, Christoph (Jena) The role of early Archean Terrestrial Environments in Weathering, Sediment Transport, and the Colonization of Land
Hoffmann, Elis & Schwarzenbach, Esther & Strauss, Harald (Berlin/Münster) Elucidating Eoarchean geodynamic  processes by multiple sulfur isotopes 
Hoppe, Peter & Vollmer, Christian (Mainz/Münster) Iron-60 as a heat source for melting and differentiation of Earth-forming planetesimals and planetary embryos
Kappler, Andreas (Tübingen) Investigating the roles of Fe(II)-silicate and Fe(III)-silicate complexes and nanoparticles in the survival of early cyanobacteria and photoferrotrophic bacteria
Kaus, Boris (Mainz) Generation of Archean Granitoids and the Onset of Plate Tectonics
Klahr, Hubert (Heidleberg) A) Linking the Earth-Building Material to Planetesimal formation in the Solar Nebula: Proper Icelines!
B) The effect of collisions among Earth-Building Material on the chemical mix of Earth.
Kurzweil, Florian (Köln) The evolution of the oceanic redox state before the Great Oxidation Event traced by stable tungsten isotope analyses in iron formations
Leitner, Jan (Mainz) The Origin of Nitrogen on Earth: Implications from Isotope and Petrologic Studies of Planetary Materials at the Sub-Micrometer Scale.”
Noack, Lena (Berlin) Global volatile cycles on early Earth
Pack, Andreas (Göttingen) Using Δ17O of sedimentary carbonate as a new single-phase thermometer – Were the Archean oceans really hot or did they only have had lower δ18O values?
Schmitt, Axel  & Trieloff, Mario (Heidelberg) Biogenic Carbon in Magmatic Minerals and Implications for the Preservation and Obliteration of Hadean Isotopic Biosignatures
Schoenberg, Ronny & Strauss, Harald (Tübingen/Münster) Was the Great Oxidation Event a sharp or an oscillating build-up of free atmospheric oxygen? A combined S-Mo-Se isotope study of continuous drill core records through the Duitschland/Rooihoogte and Timeball Hill formations, Transvaal Basin, South Africa.
Semenov, Dmitry (MPI Heidelberg) Origin of volatiles and organics on Earth, IDPs, meteorites, and comets
Weyer, Stefan (Hannover) Stromatolites as archives for metal mobilization and early life metabolisms? Uranium and Mo isotope studies of modern and Archean stromatolites and carbonates
Willbold, Matthias (Göttingen) Tracing isotopic heterogeneities in the Early Earth's mantle through time
Wombacher, Frank & Galer, Stephen (Köln/Mainz) Cadmium isotope constraints on the formation of the Earth-Moon system and volatile element cycling on the Moon

First Call for Proposals (Funding Period: 2015-2018)

Determination of high resolution thermal and tectonic history of Archean terranes: Development of a tool through a case study from the Western Dharwar Craton and the Coorg block in S. India

Jan-Peter Duda (Göttingen):

Kerogen in Archean rocks: Biotic vs abiotic signatures

Leonid Dubrovinsky (Bayreuth)

Light elements in the core of a habitable Earth

Dan Frost (Bayreuth)

Identifying the mechanism for the early oxidation of the Earths interior

Michelle M. Gehringer (Kaiserslautern)

Expanding the Bio in Biogeochemistry: Cyanobacteria and the Great Oxygenation Event

John Lee Grenfell (Berlin)

The Influence of Atmosphere-Biology-Geology during the Great Oxidation Event

Ulrich Hansen (Münster)

Influence of Earth's rotation on the differentiation of a terrestrial magma ocean

Christoph Heubeck (Jena)

The role of Partial Convective Overturn in the Barberton Greenstone Belt: Linking deep crustal-mantle and surface processes through integrated sedimentary and structural analysis of the syntectonic Moodies Group

Jörg Elis Hofmann (Berlin)

Granitoid-greenstone relationships in the eastern Kaapvaal craton and  implications for early crustal evolution

Boris Kaus (Mainz)

Geodynamic modelling of the initiation of plate tectonics in a differentiating early Earth

Hubert Klahr (Heidelberg)

Identifying the origin of Earth's building material: Where do the earth building Planetesimals and Pebbles originate from? A numerical approach of the accretion phase of the earth

Inga Köhler (Jena)

Origin of coastal facies Banded Iron Formation, Barberton Greenstone Belt (3.2 Ga)

Alfred Kröner (Mainz)

Deciphering the early Archaean crustal history in the Kaapvaal and Zimbabwe cratons

Jan Leitner (Mainz)

The Origin of Nitrogen on Earth: Implications from Isotope and Petrologic Studies of Planetary Materials at the Sub-Micrometer Scale

Carsten Münker (Köln)

The Archean isotope record of Hadean geodynamic evolution

Wladimir Neumann (DLR)

Modelling of accretion and differentiation of the proto-Earth and its building blocks

Uli Ott & Mario Trieloff (Heidelberg)

Outgassing history and early atmospheric processes recorded by paleoatmospheric noble gases in Archaean rocks

Andreas Pack (Göttingen)

Using D17O of sedimentary carbonate as a new single phase thermometer - Were the Archean oceans really hot or did they only have had lower d18O values?

Andreas Pack (Göttingen)

Triple oxygen, triple silicon, and trace elements of cherts for the reconstruction of d18O of seawater deep in time

Sylvain Petitgirard (Bayreuth)

Density and fate of silicate melts in the early Earth s mantle

David Rubie (Bayreuth)

Impact-induced melting, magma ocean evolution and core-mantle differentiation during accretion of the Earth

Ronny Schönberg (Tübingen)

Cr(III)-mobility and isotopic effects by adsorption on Mn- and Fe-(hydr-)oxides in the Critical Zone and in marine sediments: Doubts that Mesoarchean Cr isotopic variations directly record free atmospheric oxygen

Stephan Schuth & Stefan Weyer (Hannover)

Uranium and V isotope variations in Archean sediments: Evidence for metal mobilization and enzymatic reduction in an overall anoxic world?

Toni Schulz (Köln)

Spherule layers from South Africa as windows into the Paleoarchean meteorite bombardment of the Earth - Evidences from coupled Os-W isotope systematics and siderophile elements

Gerd Steinle-Neumann (Bayreuth)

Crystallizing the terrestrial magma ocean: thermo- and geodynamics

Nicola Tosi (Berlin)

Crystallizing the terrestrial magma ocean: thermo- and geodynamics

Christian Vollmer (Münster)

High resolution electron microscopy (UltraSTEM) of the most primitive organic materials in chondrite parent bodies and comets - Formation and evolution of the organic inventory of early Earth