AMGC LATEST NEWS

Read this open-access Nature Communication paper here and check its almetric here, in the top 5% of its scored research The science team included a multidisciplinary group of researchers from Kyushu University; Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium; the University of Texas Jackson School of Geoscienc...

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).

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

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.

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...