Aeolian dust is the main research topic I have been working on since my PhD;

I get the chance to travel a lot for that: sample large deserts and ocean sediments offshore these large sand boxes.

In March 2010 I was offered the chance to sail on the clipper Stad Amsterdam, which was re-sailing the route that Charles Darwin sailed on HMS Beagle, some 150 years ago. Click here for an impression.

My approach to desert dust is a sedimentological one: the wind is a very selective transport mechanism that has a strong impact on the material it carries from source to sink, and on its particle-size distributions:
* coarse particles won't be picked up
* fine particles will be kept in suspension

Therefore, wind-blown deposits have a very-well sorted size distribution that decreases from proximal (close to the source) to distal (far away from the source).

If we can recognise and quantify wind-blown particles in deep-sea sediments (and obviously we claim that we can) they can tell us something about the environmental conditions in the source area at the time of deposition.

In addition I try to find support for the inferences made on the physical properties using (bio)geochemical and mineralogical proxies.

At the moment I am working on:

1) Australian dust, fingerprinting the sources. With Patrick Dedeckker and many others.
2) UAE dust, studying the fertilizing effect of dust in shallow waters. With Waleed Hamza and many others.
3) Saharan dust off Mauritania. With Inka Meyer and many others.
4) Saharan dust on the mainland of Mauritania. With Abdoul Dia and many others.