NEWS

Read this open-access Nature Communication paper here and check its almetric here The science team included a multidisciplinary group of researchers from Kyushu University; Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium; the University of Texas Jackson School of Geosciences; the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth...

Yuwei Jia successfully defended her PhD thesis on the problems raised by metal and estrogen contamination in water and soils. The work focuses on understanding the toxicity, mobility, bioavailability, and, ultimately, the risks generated by these pollutants. Both lead to human health hazards.

Former AMGC PhD Dr. Ryoga Maeda returned this week with samples from the Hayabusa 2 asteroid sampling mission . The mission launched in 2014 by the Japanese Space Agency JAXA brought back several grams of material from C-type Asteroid 162173 Ryugu.

The presentation of the 2025 Docville scientific documentary "De dag dat het zonlicht niet meer scheen" is scheduled for April 02 2025 at 19:30 in Cinema ZED Vesalius in Leuven, as part of the Science Pitch Docu's.

In the dry corridor of Central Nicaragua lies an extraordinary archaeological site: more than 372 rocky mounds shaped into semicircles and likely built from 300 A.D. onwards. Over the past few years, archaeologists from Leiden University have mapped these mounds.

Tom Boonants presented successfully his PhD thesis titled "From falling stars to cremated bone: Towards a robust methodology of trace element determination in these Ca-heavy matrices" with Profs Steven Goderis and Christophe Snoeck from AMGC as advisors.

Giorgio Arriga successfully presented his PhD titled “ Long-term evolution of seismogenic faults in the central Apennines ”, advisors Profs Federico Rossetti (Roma) and Philippe Claeys (AMGC-VUB).

In November and December 2024, VUB researcher Ella Egberts embarked on a pilot project in the Iraqi Western Desert, specifically in the Al-Shabakah area, to investigate archaeological surface material.

The collapse of the Late Bronze Age (LBA) civilizations in the Eastern Mediterranean remains one of the greatest historical enigmas.

We are proud to share that Professor Steven Goderis, a leading member of the AMGC research group, and his team's groundbreaking Antarctic meteorite expedition have received extensive media attention.

Our AMGC landscape archaeology professor Soetkin Vervust has been working tirelessly on her exhibition on Testerep, the lost island on the Belgian coast!

The first meteorites are being collected from the Belgica Mountains in Antarctica, with Steven Goderis in command. Despite major difficulties and equipment lost while crossing large crevasse fields, new meteorites are being recovered.

On Thursday, December 12, a team of AMGC archaeology PhD students, led by Professor Ralf Vandam, hosted an engaging workshop for 5th-grade elementary students in Schaerbeek.

On December 13, AMGC archaeology PhD student Elisavet Stamataki delivered an insightful presentation at the 14th Annual Day on Belgian Archaeological Research in the Ancient Greek World.

During the 3rd International Student Conference on Medical Geology and Environmental Health (European edition), which was held online between 26-29 November, 2 PhD students from AMGC presented their contributions in the session "Emerging Contaminants: Challenges and Impacts".  Sybrien L...

The AGMC Terrace group recently participated in another fieldwork campaign in the foothills of the Troodos mountains in Cyprus (Pyrga, Erimi, and Politiko areas) at the beginning of November 2024.

Today Rachèl Spros successfully obtained her PhD with a dissertation titled "Down the Ypres rabitt-hole: A multi-isotope analysis of a medieval urban population".  Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Philippe Claeys, Prof. Dr. Ir. Christophe Snoeck from AMGC & Prof. Dr.

Major media attention in top 5% of all Altmetric research for our new paper published today in Science: with a team of international colleagues, using Ruthenium isotopes to show that the large meteorite that doomed the dinosaurs 66 million years ago came from the far end of the Solar System, way bey...

In the Monti Lucretili area (70 km from Rome), the Medieval Castle of Montefalco stands atop limestone mountains, overlooking abandoned agricultural terraces.

A new tank of Argon (Ar) gas has been installed today at the VUB to supply the Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometers (ICP-MS) of the AMGC group.  This tank with a capacity of 2000 litres guarantees the regular, steady and continuous supply of Ar gas to the AMGC labs.  The aim is to...

Niels de Winter is the laureate of the FWO Climate price 2024 for his work on bivalve shell as archive of high resolution ancien climate changes.

A journalist from 'De Morgen' was on board the research vessel Simon Stevin and searched for the remains of 'Het Atlantis' off the Belgian coast.      

The new paper by PhD student Tom Boonants on cosmic spherules was picked up by EOS Wetenschappen for a nice and complete summary in Dutch.

“We all are the future of soil sciences… when understanding and supporting the young people and children” were the final words shared by AMGC doctoral fellow Axel Cerón González at the Centennial Celebration of the International Union of Soil Sciences (IUSS) on the 21st May 2024 in Florence, Italy.

Our new paper made the cover of Nature Climate Change and received wide press coverage.

Benjamin Avakian is a PhD student funded by Eutopia program between the Departement Geosciences et Environnement at CY Cergy-Paris Université and AMGC-VUB working withe Profs Béatrice Ledesert, Philippe Claeys and Steven Goderis .

Tianhui Ma successfully defended her PhD thesis on the biogeochemical cycle of mercury and other trace metals in aquatic systems. Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Yue Gao and Prof. Dr. Martine Leermakers Examination board:  Prof. Dr. Frank De Proft (Chair) Prof. Dr. Em. Willy Baeyens (Secretary) Prof.

On February 26, 2024, Flore Van Maldeghem obtained the academic degree of DOCTOR of SCIENCE with the thesis "Unraveling the Solar System: Tracing the cosmic dust flux on Earth using Polar Sediments".

“[…] when they [ancient local Cypriots] cut down all the trees, created the terraces with rocksto retain some water and avoid losing the soil” (Andreas N., personal communication, 7 February 2024).

Ines Llopart Babot  obtained on February 2nd 2024, the academic degree of DOCTOR in of SCIENCE with the thesis "Development of novel assay for "difficult to measure" radionuclides in materials produced during nuclear decommissioning activities.

On Radio 1, fInishing PhD student Flore Van Maldeghem describes her research on micrometeorites and how extra-terrestrial material can be found on many rooftops.

For the first time, all meteorite, micro-meteorite, planetary & impact crater specialists gather in Brussels for  their annual meeting from July 28 to Aug.

Jérôme Roland  obtained on January 17th 2024, the academic degree of DOCTOR in of SCIENCE with the thesis "Condensation processes in impact-related vapor plumes evidenced by isotope fractionation" Joint PhD with the group G-Time at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB).

Using the AMGC Oxygen clumped isotope facilty, high temperature (> 300ºC) calcium carbonate fragments are identified deep within the Chicxulub crater in Yucatan.

Professors David De Vleeschouwer and Lawrence Percival, both former members of AMGCer's, authored a major review paper on Cyclostratigraphy and Paleoclimate that constitutes an major advance towards a fully astronomically-calibrated timescale for the entire Phanerozoic.

This was a busy weekend for AMGC'ers in terms of Science outreach and presentations to a public of non-specialists. Check it out.

The third season of the Hala Sultan Tekke Hinterland project took place during the last week of October and the first two weeks of November.

Check out Altmetric of our paper “Chicxulub impact winter sustained by fine silicate dust”. It is a collaboration with Royal Belgian Observatory and Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences.

Successfull field campaign in Slovenia The last but not least sampling campaign of the CRIME project (a collaboration of AMGC researchers with the University of Ljubljana , and the Jožef Stefan Institute , funded by FWO ) was completed in August 2023.  The CRIME project focus...

Excellent performance for Prof. Barbara Veselka, Dr. Hannah James and Dr. Jean-Guillaume Feignon from AMGC, all 3 obtained FWO travel grants to present their work at an international meeting or to carry out research abroad. Good job, spead the work done at AMGC.

AMGC is hiring a new PhD student on a project in collaboration with SCK-CEN  Topic: Novel assays of ‘difficult-to-measure’ radionuclides in the context of a sustainable waste management radionuclides used in medical applications.  AMGC contact: Prof. Martine Leermakers More details...

The VUB is known as an "Urban Engaged University" very much integrated within the city of Brussels and so is AMGC that actively carries out research focused on Brussels, as shown by the new PhD project that is starting soon “ Revealing the Senne: a hidden landmark in the historical center of Brus...

Prof. Dr. Niels de Winter was awarded a VENI grant  to develop new research at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam from the Dutch Research Council. Niels is a former AMGC'er who obtained his PhD in 2019 at the VUB with Philippe Claeys.

 A new paper  authored by a large group of experts in domains ranging from Anthropology and Archaeology to Environmental Changes and Impact Cratering, published online this week in the well established journal Earth-Science Reviews, definitively refutes the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis...

Jordi Sans Duño obtained on July 4th 2023, the academic degree of DOCTOR in of SCIENCE with the thesis "Measuring the availability of metals in large mixtures with diffusive thin films (DGT) devices" Joint PhD with the University of Lleida in Spain Supervisors: Prof. Yue Gao (VUB), Prof.

On Friday June 30 2023 the traditional annual VUB staff BBQ took place on campus.  AMGC participated.  See the pictures of this great team event below.

PhD student Flore Van Maldeghem was one of the 3 laureates of this year Doctoral Derby at the VUB. With her research on Antarctic meteorites as messenger from space titled "Clues from cosmic dust" , Flore is this year winner of the prize for "best written research summary".

On Thursday May 25th, His Excellency Ambassador Zhongming Cao discovered the AMGC labs during his visit at the VUB. Professor Yue Gao introduced him to the AMGC staff and mass spectrometers and explain our research focusing on Earth and Environmental Sciences.

The first CycloNet Summer Training School sponsored by Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) was held from April 29th to May 06th 2023 at Osservatorio Geologico di Coldigioco (OCG) in Italy.  CycloNet is support by FWO Scientific Research Network.  Prof.

Professors Steven Goderis and Philippe Claeys, co-authored a paper with colleagues from Open University in the UK and Dr Lidia Pittarello (former AMGC post-doc now at Museum of Natural History, Vienna) published this week in Nature Astronomy  on the formation and m...

Pim Kaskes obtained on April 26th 2023, the academic degree of DOCTOR in of SCIENCE with the thesis "Reconstructing the first moments after the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary impact event: High-resolution petrography and geochemistry of proximal and distal Chicxulub ejecta" &nbsp...

PhD student Flore Van Maldeghem is among the 8 finalists selected for this year VUB Science Communication contest. Congratulation to Flore and we wish her the very best of luck.

Mingyue Luo obtained on April 4th 2023, the academic degree of DOCTOR in of SCIENCE with the thesis "Monitoring and investigation of biogeochemical processes of inorganic pollutants in water, sediment and soil"  Supervisors: Prof. Yue Gao (VUB) and Prof.

Dr. Ryoga Maeda is now a research associate at Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology - JAMSTEC in Yokohama, Japan.   After four fantastic years of PhD research on Antarctic meteorites with Professor Steven Goderis as thesis advisor, and as a pillar of AMGC, Dr.

Professor Martine Leermakers held a training course for VUB and UGent Master students in Environmental Chemistry on board of the new RV Belgica in March 2023.  Students learned to use oceanographic equipments and understand aquatic geochemical processes.

Ryoga Maeda obtained on March 6th 2023, the academic degree of DOCTOR in of SCIENCE with the thesis "Chemical and isotopic characterization of Antarctica meteorites: The chemical and isotopic effects of thermal processing and terrestrial weathering on the (re)distribution of trace ele...

Tessi Loeffelmann obtained on February 3rd 2023, the academic degree of DOCTOR in INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES. The thesis of her doctoral thesis is "There and back again - Mobility and burial rites in early medieval England c.

Christina Makarona obtained on Tuesday February 28, the academic degree of DOCTOR OF SCIENCES. The title of her doctoral thesis is  "Geochemical proxies for the technological study of Late Bronze Age ceramics from south-western Cyprus".   Advisors Prof. Dr.

On February 15, 2023 Sarah Dalle successfully defended her thesis “Exposing hidden transitions. Integrating strontium and radiocarbon data from archaeological cremated bone within the Belgian landscape”.  Supervisors: Prof. dr. Guy De Mulder (UG), Prof. dr. Christophe Snoeck (VUB).

Tessi Loeffelmann paper in titled "Sr analyses from only known Scandinavian cremation cemetery in Britain illuminate early Viking journey with horse and dog across the North Sea" receives lots of media attention.   Tessi is finishing her joint PhD at University of...

 This year field season in Antarctica led to the discovery of an almost 8 kg meteorite.

PhD researcher Flore Van Maldeghem is very active in the diffusion of AMGC research, and its communication to schools and a large public.    At AMGC we make every effort to spread the results of our research widely, to schools and the public in general.

Dr. Christina Cheung in now a Professor in Anthropology in Hong-Kong.  After two great years as post-doctoral researcher within AMGC, Dr.

Great start for our 2022-2023 meteorite search in East Antarctica, using the Belgian station Princess Elisabeth as logistic base.  AMGC'er Ryoga Maeda already reports the finding of several meteorites within the searched moraines deposits.

Steven and his team enjoy a new toy for studying (micro)meteorites and the flux of extra-terrestrial particules to Earth.   Thanks to funding from the Research Foundation Flanders, Hercules project : "Shooting stars and blasting dinosaurs: boosting ICP-MS capabilities across various r...

On December 12 & 13, 2002, AMGC members metin Oostende, at the Thermae Palace Hotel for the annual team building activities.  Presentations were given and discussions occured under the leadership of Prof.

From October 11 to today Dr. Marion Peral was a scientist on the Joides Resolution IODP Exp 397.   She is now returning to Tarragona (Spain) after ± 2 month at sea drilling the ocean floor offshore the Iberian margin in the South of Portugal.

Philippe Claeys was in Marocco end of November invited to present a keynote talks during the inaugural session of the MedGU 2022 Meeting.  The Mediterranean Geosciences Union meeting (Nov. 28 to 30) was in Marrakech at the Cadi Ayyad University.

Join the BB-LAB to study the impact of past Rapid Climate Change on human mobility in prehistoric Belgium.  PhD Position in isotope Bioarchaeology at the VUB within the recently funded LEAP project "Learning from the past: the impact of abrupt climate change on society and environments in...

A new paper as part of the recent PhD of Dr. Sietze de Graaff is published in the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology.

This year AMGC made a razzia on Research Foundation Flanders Travel Grants (FWO) to spread our research results all over the world.   Dr Kevin Rey obtained financial support to attend the " The 6th International Palaeontological Congress " in Khon Kaen, Thailand, i...

Dr. Marta Marchegiano, post-doctoral researcher at AMGC received an International Association of Sedimentologists IAS post-doctoral grant.   The title of her project is "Ostracod living fauna from Lake Izabal (Guatemala) and Lake Victoria (Tanzania) as modern analogue to reconstr...

The pre-print of Sietze de Graaff is second in the SSRN top 10 list to download list.   The paper is titled: The Chicxulub impact structure reveals the first in-situ Jurassic aged magmatic intrusions of the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico.

Dr. Ségolène Rabin is a post-doctoral researcher with Professor Steven Goderis on the BELSPO project DESIRE.   She is the 2022 laureate of the Haüy-Lacroix award given by the "Société Française de Minéraologie et Cristallographie" for her PhD work carried out...

Benjamin Jentgen obtained on July, 5th 2022, the academic degree of DOCTOR OF SCIENCES.   The title of his doctoral thesis is  "Histological and remodelling patterns among neosauropods in insular environments".   Joint PhD between Vrije Universiteit Brussel &a...

Dr. Niels de Winter video for Universiteit Vlaanderen is online here   It describes in details how ancient, often million years old fossil shells can provide very high resolution, down to season or days, paleoclimate information that make it possible to better understan...

This week at the UK Archaeological Science Conference (UKAS) held in Aberdeen, UK, AMGC researchers: Carina Gerritzen, Ellie Stamataki and Dr.

Sietze de Graaff obtained on April 26, 2022, the academic degree of DOCTOR OF SCIENCES. The title of his doctoral thesis is: "Making Sense of Destruction: A Geochemical and Petrological Investigation of the Impact Melt Rocks and Crystalline Basement of the Chicxulub Impact Structure.

Vendula Smolikovà obtained on April 21, 2022 the academic degree of DOCTOR OF SCIENCES.   The title of her doctoral thesis is: "Determination of trace elements in the aquatic environment using diffusive gradients in thin films technique"   Joint PhD betwe...

The paper by Dr. Christina Cheung a post-doctoral researcher from AMGC and BBLab made the headline in the South China Morning Post.

Barbara Veselka, post-doctoral researcher, recent paper titled   "Estimating age-at-death in burnt adult human remains using the Falys-Prangle method"  Is within the top cited for 2020-2021 in the journal "American Journal of Biological Anthropology"  Congratulati...

Fantastic outreach to the young generation of scientists. AMGC'ers Dr. Hannah James, Jacob Griffith, Dr.

On Monday 28 of March, Dr. Niels de Winter presents his research on how North Sea oyster-shells register climate changes at very high resolution (in Dutch).

The book to honor Prof. Walter Alvarez career achievements is now published online by Geological Society of America Special papers.

Pim Kaskes, PhD student working on Chicxulub crater is one of the 2022 winners of the Career Development Award from the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) presented this year at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston Texas.

AMGC is hiring a new PhD student on a project in collaboration with SCK-CEN    Topic: Development of fast and sensitive methods for radiotoxicological and biodistribution studies/analyses of radionuclides used in medical applications.    AMGC contact: Prof. Martine...

Machine learning helps find Antarctic meteorites, new paper by PhD student Veronica Tollenaar (@FNRS) and Dr. Harry Zekollari in Science Advances read it here in open access.

Join a motivated, dynamic and diverse research group in Brussels, supported by outstanding analytical facilities.   AMGC is currently recruiting a PhD student to work on a funded FWO project "Some like it hot" that proposes to document changing paleoclimates through tim...

Dr. Barbara Veselka, AMGC and MARI specialist in Osteology, co-authors a recent paper in Nature titled "Large-scale migration into Britain during the Middle to Late Bronze Age".  The manuscript highlights, using genome analyses, differences between ancient migratio...

Pim Kaskes receives this award from the Planetary Science Institute to present his PhD research at the 2022 Lunar and Planetary Conference in Houston, Texas   Pim Kaskes is current a PhD student (FWO fellow) in AMGC working on the 66 million years old Chicxulub cra...

David De Vleeschouwer did his PhD as FWO fellow within AMGC at the VUB with Philippe Claeys, on orbital forcing influence of Devonian Greenhouse Climates, after successful years in MARUM Bremen and an IODP cruise offshore Australia, he is now the new Earth System professor...

Good researchers never grow old... New Paper published this week by Emeritus Professor Eddy Keppens.  Eddy retired in 2013 after a full career at the VUB, coming from Ghent University, where he got his degree in Geology, he was one of the first VUB PhD students with Prof.

Video of the ceremony VUB Vice-rector research Karin Vanderkerken and Minister for Science Policy Thomas Dermine is on YouTube click here    Website Paleontologica Belgica   Dr. Koen Stein, former AMGC FWO post-doc and now working at Royal Institute of Na...

National Institute of Polar Research International (NIPR) Internship award granted to Ph student Ryoga Maeda.   Ryoga will spend 3 months at NIPR from December 2021 to March 2022.  In the framework of this project Ryoga Maeda will work with Dr.

Dr. Kevin Salesse  from AMGC & BBLab experimentally cremated pigs remains and then used stable isotopes of C and O together with Fourier Transform Infra-Red Spectroscopy (FTIR) to determine the position of a body on the pyre and the presence of footwe...

Great work by Dr. Ines Tomasek , in collaboration with AMGC'ers and FARD team-members.

Niels de Winter, FWO post-doctoral researcher at AMGC and Marie Sklodowska-Curie post-doctoral research at Utrecht University is the 2020 EOS Pipet Award laureate (award for a young scientist given by EOS Magazine) Bravissiomo Niels de Winter .

Bastien Soens obtained on September 17, 2021 the academic degree of DOCTOR OF SCIENCES with the following doctoral thesis: 'Petrographic and geochemical characterization of the micrometeorite collection from the Sør Rondane Mountains, Antarctica: Nature and origin of the extraterrestrial...

Former AMGC'ers Dr. David De Vleeschouwer (PhD 2014), now Earth System Professor at Muenster University and Dr. Matthias Sinnesael (PhD.

In Oostende on Saturday 7th Aug. Flore Van Maldeghem from AMGC explained the formation of the solar system, planets and meteorites to the next generation of geologists and planetary scientists.  Despite the rain, a good crowd attended the lecture, in the street, by Flor...

In this paper, titled "Formation of the crater suevite sequence from the Chicxulub peak ring: A petrographic, geochemical and sedimentological characterization", recently published in Geological Society of America Bulletin, Pim Kaskes, FWO PhD fellow, describes the thick suevite sequences...

International Association of Sedimentologists funds Johan Maastrichtian Geo-Heritage project   Dr Johan Vellekoop (FWO senior postdoctoral researcher) received funding from IAS (International Association of Sedimentologists) to carry out a high-resolution sedi...

Dr Matthias Sinnesael last (of many) paper from his PhD at AMGC is now available in Geology (read it here).

Nice article in Dutch in Het Nieuwblad, a very popular journal in Belgium over meteorites, with an extensive interview of Prof. Steven Goderis.  Title "Stukje meteoriet gevonden?

In this new paper published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment Dr. Niels de Winter and co-authors reconstruct absolute seasonal temperature by measuring clumped isotope in bivalve shells.

Ehab Abdulbur Alfakhory obtained on June 10, 2021 the academic degree of  DOCTOR OF SCIENCES with the following doctoral thesis: 'Development of the Diffusive Gradient in Thin-Films (DGT) passive sampling technique for Platinum Group Elements (PGEs) and its application in urban rivers'  Co...

A new laser ablation triple-quad inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer, coupled with high performance liquid chromatography for AMGC are part of the large instruments funded for the VUB by the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) this year, with Proferssor Steven Goderi...

PhD student Sietze de Graaff wrote this very complete and detailed paper showing how the impact melt material formed within the 200 km size Chicxulub impact structure, based on the material recovered by the IODP-ICDP drilling in 2016 within the peak-ring part of the structure.

Ryoga Maeda PhD student on EOS ET-Home project published the first paper of his PhD on alteration of meteorites collected in Antarctica.

New CycloNet project (European Cyclo-Stratigraphy Network) supported by the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) is presented at the EGU 2022 General Assembly by Philippe Claeys, Christian Zeeden, David De Vleeschouwer and Matthias Sinnesael.  The aim is to federate and coordinate research i...

On Tuesday 17 of May 2022, at 7 PM, Professor Steven Goderis presented a lecture to the "Koninklijke Vlaamse Chemische Vereniging" (Royal Flemish Chemical Society, KVCV) at the VUB, titled:"Iridium distributed around the globe following the Chicxulub impact event" 

Dr. Niels de Winter (PhD 2019) is selected for BOTH the 2021 EOS Pipet price and for the New Scientist Science Talent 2021.    Please vote on websites of New Scientist Wetenschapstalent 2021 and EOS Pipet price 2021: to support Ni...

Former AMGC'er Dr. Matthias Van Ginneken is first author a new manuscript in Science Advances describing the explosion of a meteorite above Antarctica some 430000 years ago, and the production of a touchdown event when a vapor jets interact with the ice sheet  Right: Touchdo...

Annelies Van Heyst obtained on April 1, 2021 the academic degree of DOCTOR OF SCIENCES with the following doctoral thesis: 'Challenges in the evaluation of mineral oil hydrocarbons in food'  Promotor: Prof. dr. ir. Marc Elskens  Co-promotor: Dr. Els Van Hoeck, Dr.

PhD student Marta Hlad (FWO Fellow) is first author of a new paper recently published in American Journal of Physical Anthropology together with other members of the CRUMBEL team, led by Professor Christophe Snoeck.   Click here to read the paper or visit the&

Days were shorter in time of the dinosaurs, according to 2020 AMGC paper in Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology published by the American Geophysical Union (AGU).   This paper is among the AGU top-download of 2020   Study directed by AMGC Dr.

Chunyang Zhou obtained on February 16, 2021 the academic degree of DOCTOR OF SCIENCES with the following doctoral thesis: 'Understanding biogeochemical processes of trace elements in marine sediments at various spatial scales'  Promotor: Prof. dr. Yue Gao 

Check out our two flying Mass Spectrometers entering the VUB building F through the window on the 8th floor.   Two new instruments are being installed at the VUB this month.

Matthias Sinnesael obtained on June 12, 2020 the academic degree of DOCTOR OF SCIENCES with the doctoral thesis:  "Astronomical cycle identification methods and their application to high-resolution Ordovician stratigraphy".  Joint PhD between VUB and Ghent University with Philipp...

Prof. Steven Goderis published a paper in Science Advances showing the presence of the KT boundary Ir positive anomaly within the Chicxulub crater in Yucatan (read it here open access)  Check out VUB Today coverage, worldwide it attracted major media attention...

Camille Gaulier is the laureate of the VLIZ (Flanders Marine Institute) North Sea Award 2020 for her research on trace metals and their speciation in the Southern Bight of the North Sea and along the Scheldt estuary.  Read below her comments on learning about this awar...

AMGC paleoclimate research using speleothems (stalagmite and cave deposits) is featured on Belgian TV (RTBF), with interview of Sophie Verheyden and Philippe Claeys.  Click here to watch video (in French)  This follows a large press coverage in Belgian me...

Professor Steven Goderis from AMGC was in charge of the 2019-2020 Belgian mission to Antarctica that collected meteorite from the Nansen Ice field, near Princess Elisabeth station. The international mission was composed also of Dr. Hamed Pourkhorsandi (ULB), Professor N...

Click here to download the file pdf filejob-vub-2020.pdf (59 KB)

For the scientists of the future, in the framework of "Kinderuniversiteit" at the VUB, PhD researcher Flore Van Maldeghem organized a workshop searching for and finding micrometeorites on the roof-tops in Brussels (see below a summary In Dutch)  Samenvatting &

Joint PhD between the KU Leuven and the VUB, supervised by Professors Patrick Degryse and Philippe Claeys.

More biogeoarchaelogy output from AMGC, research presented at the Bones Diagenesis meeting organized in Oxford in 2017.

PhD jointly with Federal University of Rio Grande, Brazil, carried out with AMGC'ers Frank Dehairs and Marc Elskens.   

More biogeoarchaelogy output from AMGC, Niels de Winter, Christophe Snoeck and Philippe Claeys, research presented at theBone Diagenesis meeting organized in Oxford in 2017.    Read it here  

Genyffer Troina obtained on October 17, 2019 the academic degree of DOCTOR OF SCIENCES with the following thesis "Trophic interactions and ecology of cetaceans from the western South Atlantic"  PhD jointly with Federal University of Rio Grande, Brazil, carried out with as advisors AMGC'ers...

Philippe Claeys video on YouTube for Universiteit Van Vlaanderen (in Dutch) about the end of the dinosaurs and the formation of the Chicxulub crater in Yucatan 66 million years ago, cause by the collision on Earth of a 10 to 12 km asteroid.

The output is spread 50% in Earth and Planetary sciences, the rest is distributed between 9 other disciplines from Environmental Sciences 8.7%) to Arts and Humanity (6.1%), Physics and Astronomy (4.8%) etc. See figure below

During her 1 month stay, Dr Perrine Mangion performed the extraction and isotopic analyses of N and O in nitrates from groundwater and river water samples from La Réunion to identify the origin of the nitrate contamination.

On October 29, at Wiels (http://www.wiels.org) a series of conferences presented by AMGC'ers Natacha Brion and Philippe Claeys, together with Landscape Architect Bas Smets discussion how to properly manage urban waters in Brussels and propose solutions for the future.

Two lectures on Wed. Oct. 23 on VUB campus, room D.2.01, by Sebastien Olive (Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences) on Placoderms (fishes) and by Philippe Claeys on the dinosaur extinction. 

Our recent PNAS publication on the mechanism of the dinosaur extinction 66 million years ago led to a special article (in Dutch) in the popular journal "Het Laatste Nieuws".

Steven, Thomas, Sietze and Pim then carried out field work around the Araguainha crater, trying to avoid deadly snake bites....  Large Meteorite Impacts and Planetary Evolution VI 2019 Meeting in Brasilia brought together impact crater specialists from all over the world.

Innoviris, the Brussels Agency for Research and Innovation supports this new project called SUBLIMUS through its Bridge Strategic Platform: Green Chemistry action. SUBLIMUS  develops an integrated low-cost and green process to harvest the substantial quantities of gold, platinum, silver pr...

Paper title:  An extraterrestrial trigger for the mid-Ordovician ice age: Dust from the breakup of the L-chondrite parent body .

This new paper written with a large number of colleagues from the IODP-ICDP expedition 364 describes how the Chicxulub impact vaporized sediments from the target rock and injected a large volume of S-rich components into the atmosphere leading to the mass extinction.

JEONG-HYUN LEE   Dept. of Geological Sciences, Chungnam National Universit   MARINE OXYGENATION AND THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF PALEOZOIC REEFS   Friday, Sept. 13, 2019 11 am, room F10.720 

Geological Society of America Special Papers 542 just published: Manuscripts online at https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/books/book/2157: 4 papers authored by AMGC'ers/  1) 87Sr/86Sr record from the Lower Cretaceous pelagic Maiolica limestone (Central Apennines, Italy) and its off...

Manuscripts online at https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/books/book/2157 87Sr/86Sr record from the Lower Cretaceous pelagic Maiolica limestone (Central Apennines, Italy) and its offset from the global seawater reference curve  By Joke Belza; Walter Alvarez; Frank Vanhaecke; Philippe C...

JOHN W. VALLEY   Charles R. Van Hise Distinguished Professor Dept. of Geosciences, University of Wisconsin – Madison   HADEAN ZIRCONS ARE NOT FROM HELL: EVIDENCE FROM ATOM PROBE & SIMS   Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2019 4 pm, room F10.720 

Professors Yue Gao and Martine Leermakers organized a DGT workshop and training in Vietnam as parts of the Global Minds Programme. Afterwards they went on a field trip to deploy DGT in the Đáy River    

PhD student Pim Kaskes receives "The Barringer Family Fund for Meteorite Impact Research 2019" to carry out detailed field mapping of the Chicxulub crater ejecta in North America.    see https://www.lpi.usra.edu/science/kring/Awards/Barringer_Fund/awardees/  

On Monday 17 June 2019, Philippe Claeys is invited by Universiteit Van Vlaanderen, at Club Fuse in Brussels, to talk about the extinction of the dinosaures (In Dutch). Show starts at 19:00 and is to be recorded for the YouTube channel of Universiteit Van Vlaanderen  

BY GUILLAUME LENOIR I will present the Python package WAVEPAL which performs frequency and time-frequency analyses of irregularly sampled time series without interpolating the data. The frequency analysis is based on the Lomb-Scargle periodogram and the WOSA smoothing method.

Alicia Van Ham - Meert obtained on May 06, 2019 the academic degree of DOCTOR OF SCIENCES with the thesis:  "Development of non-destructive analysis protocols for the chemical and isotopic analysis of archaeological materials".  Joint PhD between the KU Leuven and the VUB, superv...

Niels de Winter obtained on February 22, 2019 the academic degree of DOCTOR OF SCIENCES with the following doctoral thesis " A critical assessment of the proxies, archives and techniques available for high-resolution paleoclimate reconstructions".   With Philippe Claeys as advisor.&nb...

POST-DOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP IN MERCURY MARINE BIOGEOCHEMISTRY  The  Analytical,  Environmental  and  Geochemistry  (AMGC)  at  VUB  offers  a  Post-doctoral  Fellowship position.

Dr. Christophe Snoeck is nominated as Archeaologist of the year 2019   and his research paper:    Strontium isotope analysis on cremated human remains from Stonehenge support links with west Wales, by Snoeck et al.

De Vrije Universiteit Brussel organiseert maandag 26 november een live-streaming van de landing van het ruimtetuig InSight op Mars. Om 21 uur Belgische tijd landt InSight op de rode planeet.

Kevin De Bondt obtained on September 21, 2018 the academic degree of DOCTOR OF SCIENCES with the doctoral thesis "The forgotten connections between groundwater and urban water management policies: Stable isotope and the Urban Hydrological Landscape applied to Brussels".  Thesis adviso...

Christophe Snoeck's paper on "  Strontium isotope analysis on cremated human remains from Stonehenge support links with west Wales  " that was published in Nature Scientific Reports is seen as a breaktrough in developing insights on the Stonehenge mystery.  His research...

AMGC ORGANIZES THE CYCLOSTRATIGRAPHY INTERCOMPARISON PROJECT 2018 WORKSHOP IN BRUSSELS  From July 30 till August 01, 2018 the AMGC research group will organize the Cyclostratigraphy Intercomparison Project 2018 Workshop in the ‘Paleis de Academiën” in Brussels.  The main goal of...

BY LIDIA PITTARELLO Meteorite impact cratering is generally investigated through observations, experiments, and numerical modeling. These three approaches can succeed only by mutual cooperation.

The paper " Rapid recovery of life at ground zero of the end-Cretaceous mass extinction " is in collaboration with many international science researchers including Prof. Dr.

Stef Vansteenberge obtained on May 25 2018 the academic degree of DOCTOR OF SCIENCES with the following doctoral thesis:  Reconstruction of last interglacial & last glacial inception paleoclimate using Belgian speleothems. Promotor: Prof. Dr. Philippe Claeys  

Tara Vandermarken obtained on May 25, 2018 the academic degree of DOCTOR OF SCIENCES with the following doctoral thesis:  "Development of estrogens in the environment and in food packaging materials".   PhD advisors Marc Elskens. 

BY STEVEN GODERIS This proposal documents habitability on the early Earth and at the surface of Mars in the past and the present. Habitability is commonly understood as “the potential of an environment (past or present) to support life of any kind”.

BY CHRISTOPHE SNOECK   The CRUMBEL project (Cremation, Urns and Mobility; ancient population dynamics in BELgium) proposes to study the important collections of cremated bone found in Belgium dating from the Neolithic to the Early-Medieval period.

BY POPPE L. DE BOER The concept of uniformitarianism dates back to the late 18th century. The idea is that physical and chemical laws have not changed, and that also in the distant geological past sedimentary processes have acted as they do today.

AMGC’ers Steven Goderis and Matthias Van Ginnenken brought back more than 100 kg of material full of micrometeorite, their successful expedition is reported in   De Standaard    De Morgen    RTL/info  

BY KRISTOF  CUADROS  PEREZ Climate Response “Will Renewable Energies save our Climate?”, “Is the industry not the big driver for Climate Change?”, “Why aren’t Governments doing more?” and “Can individuals really make a difference?” These are just some of the basic questions...