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New PhD student is joining QUEST
The QUEST Team will soon be joined by Ms. Cinthya Nava Fernandez from Mexico. Cinthya received a PhD fellowship from the German Academic Exchange Programme (DAAD) to study Holocene ENSO variability using speleothems from Australasia and South America.
Cinthya will be based at RUB, supervised by Seb, Adam and Adrian Immenhauser.
Mid-term meeting at University of Mainz
We joined for the mid-term meeting at the Speleothem Research Group of University of Mainz at March 7 & 8, 2017. Adam and Beth joined by Skype.
QUEST in the Arctic
Norbert contributed to the Sydney Chapman Chair Seminar series “Complex Systems Science Meets Arctic Science” at the University of Fairbanks, Alaska, 28 Feb 2017 and 2 March 2017: One lecture on recurrence plot analyses for the scienific experts and one lecture on “Caves as scientific archives” for the non-expert audience, but both related to research performed within QUEST.
There was opportunity to visit the one and only permafrost tunnel of the world.
Ice wedge in the permafrost tunnel.
Fieldwork in Waipuna Cave, New Zealand
Seb is currently visiting Beth and Adam to conduct fieldwork in Waipuna cave. The goal was to survey surface and cave tracks to link drip monitoring sites in the cave with the meteo station at the surface, install loggers, download collected data etc.
Two trips were very successful, although the autosampler – to be deployed – failed us due to moisture creeping into the electronics (again). It is currently being repaired and will be installed as soon as time permits.
Adam in Waipuna
First publication out in Nature Communications
The first publication by members of the QUEST team (Norbert & Seb) has recently been published in Nature Communications on a giant see-saw in the monsoonal realm. Find the paper here: http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms12929
A press release has also been published by PIK Potsdam:
https://www.pik-potsdam.de/news/press-releases/giant-see-saw-of-monsoon-rains-detected
enjoy!
QUEST at the German Cavers Association Annual General Assembly (VdHK)
Seb presented QUEST in an invited public lecture on the 6th of May 2016 at the VdHK General Assembly in the Harz Mountains. The lecture on “Climate reconstructions from caves and the importance of climate monitoring in caves” appealed to the German speleologists to support scientific monitoring efforts in caves. A lively questioning-answering session helped to explain the importance of monitoring and the roles non-scientists can play in scientific projects. The talk and discussion got great feedback from the community.
QUEST at EGU
Seb, Adam, Beth, Norbert and team are presenting their research at EGU in Vienna.
Meeting in Cambridge
First group meeting at the University of Cambridge, 25-26 April 2016.