Sea Ice Biogeochemist

Dr Delphine Lannuzel

Dr Lannuzel’s research interests lie in the study of trace metal distributions, speciation and biogeochemistry in polar regions. During her PhD Dr Lannuzel developed a method for sampling and measuring iron in the sea ice environment since such technologies did not presently exist worldwide. She then implemented this technology in Australia and became a key member of the productive trace metal biogeochemistry team assembled at the ACE CRC. The iron and other trace elements profiles generated during her research represented the first data for the Antarctic pack ice zone. Her pioneering work highlighted the accumulation of trace element iron in the sea ice medium and therefore the paramount importance of Antarctic sea ice to iron biogeochemical cycling in polar ecosystems.


CURRENT RESEARCH

Dr Lannuzel currently leads an international (AUS-US-Belgium-Japan) multi-disciplinary project to assess the physical and biological drivers of both the iron and carbon cycles in the seasonal ice zone (AAS #4291 – “Impact of the predicted changes in sea ice extent on primary productivity in the Southern Ocean: links between the iron and carbon cycles in fast ice and the marginal ice zone’). This project is motivated by the fact that despite its potential to naturally fertilize the Southern Ocean with iron, the sea ice zone is understudied compared to open ocean regions with respect to its contribution to the biological carbon pump. Combining a fast ice process study and laboratory experiments on archived samples, this project will generate an improved understanding of the biogeochemistry required to constrain predictions of the changing sea ice habitat in the East Australian sector.

Dr Lannuzel is part of the ACE CRC’s Carbon Uptake and Chemical Change project.




Authorised by the CEO of the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre October 2019.

The ACE CRC was established and supported under the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centres Program.

core participants

 

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other participants

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