Dr. Kai Deng has joined the GFZ on 01.07.2023 as part of the Humboldt Research Fellowship for PostDocs. He is a guest in Section 3.3 Geochemistry of the Earth's Surface for 20 months and works with Prof. Dr. Friedhelm von Blanckenburg and members of his group.

Specifically, Kai Deng is researching the geological regulation of the Earth's climate. In particular, he is interested in how the weathering of volcanic basaltic rock can remove CO₂ from the atmosphere. Kai Deng wants to determine the "weatherability" of basalt. To do this, he measures the stable isotopes of the element lithium on rock, soil and river water along a climate gradient. The work takes place at the Helmholtz Laboratory for the Geochemistry of the Earth's Surface (HELGES), which is modern and equipped with considerable expertise for this work. HELGES is visited every year from all over the world by visiting scientists and fellows to carry out such research projects.

Kai Deng studied geology and marine sciences at Tongji University in Shanghai. For his doctoral thesis, he has already worked with the GFZ and also with Friedhelm von Blanckenburg and Dr. Hella Wittmann. The topic of his thesis was the use of cosmogenic isotopes to determine the fastest erosion rates on Earth in Taiwan. Kai Deng has been a PostDoc at ETH Zurich since 2020 and worked on the oceanic cycling of trace metals such as beryllium and rare earths.

The Humboldt Research Fellowship finances his research project in Germany with a scholarship for 20 months. It is only awarded to researchers with above-average qualifications.