Surface environments and collection management

The service conducts fundamental research on dynamics of transfers in current and past surface environments and on the interface between the four geospheres: lithospheres (continental crust, oceanic crust, soil), hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere.

This research is specifically focused on the following three areas:

• External silicon (Si) cycles, notably regarding soil-plant exchanges, land-ocean mass transfer, and modern and Archean silicification processes. After oxygen, silicon is the most abundant element in the earth’s crust. As such, quantification of the cycles is crucial for understanding the mechanisms controlling many geological and environmental processes.
• Biomineralization which plays a fundamental role in major geochemical cycles (carbonates, silica, iron oxides) and provides unique and important geological archives of present and past changes in ecosystems.
• The evolution of soils and aquifers, which change with the complex rhythm of seasons, climate change, subsidence-exhumation cycles, and physico-chemical parameters induced by biological and anthropogenic processes. Multidisciplinary understanding of the factors of their evolution has become an indispensable prerequisite to answer questions on the vulnerability and renewal of these two essential resources.