The Helmholtz Centre Potsdam - GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences is the national centre for research into the geosphere. With around 1,650 employees, we develop a sound understanding of systems and processes of the solid Earth as well as strategies and options for action to counter global change, understand natural hazards and sustainably secure energy and raw material requirements.

We seek a highly motivated postdoctoral scholar to contribute to the development of a new landscape-scale concept for future land use or management that takes into account their carbon storage potential with the aim of achieving “net-zero landscapes”.  

Landscapes store carbon, fixed through photosynthesis by plants, in soils and sediments. This stable carbon can become a long-term sink for atmospheric carbon when it is transferred by rivers into geological basins (such as deep ocean sediment). Since several thousands of years, humans have been engineering fluvial landscapes to make them more efficient for agriculture and transport, altering those biogeochemical fluxes, while their effect on the carbon cycle is unquantified. 

In a joint project funded by the Helmholtz Research Field “Earth and Environment” you will work within a team of partners at the GFZ as well as the Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine research (AWI) and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) to understand and quantify mechanisms of carbon fixation, stabilization, transformation and mobilization in fluvial systems. 

This project will focus on river systems in Northeastern Germany using sedimentary archives of the recent geological past and a diverse set of tools, from sedimentology, geomorphology, paleoclimatology, organic and inorganic geochemistry on fluvial sediments and marine archives during periods of natural climate variability and major human disruptions. 

Your responsibilities:

• Perform sedimentological, geomorphological, organic and inorganic geochemical analyses on fluvial and potentially marine sediment archives
• Extract, purify and analyse terrestrial biomarkers and their radiogenic and stable carbon and hydrogen isotope ratios to trace carbon through the landscape
• Obtain a detailed understanding of the natural processes and human perturbations that alter the carbon budget of a fluvial landscape
• Publish key results in international journals and present them at scientific meetings

Your qualifications:

• PhD degree (or equivalent) in the (bio)geosciences (geology, physical geography, environmental sciences, geoecology or related fields), with evidence of excellence in guided research
• A capacity for quickly grasp scientific concepts and place detailed information and observations in a wider context
• An ability to independently develop the project in the framework of the PI group
• A talent for combining techniques and insights from different disciplines, and a keen interest in carbon cycling
• Experience in sediment coring, sampling and (organic) geochemical analysis is an advantage
• Very good English skills, both written and spoken
• High motivation and creativity as well as a result-oriented, structured and independent working attitude
• Willingness and ability to work in a diverse, interdisciplinary and international team