ProfessorTina van de Flierdt

My research focus is the development and application of new geochemical and isotopic tracers in marine geochemistry, paleoceanography and paleoclimate, with particular focus on radiogenic isotope systems (Ar, Sr, Nd, Hf, Pb). Although these tracers have been widely used in solid-earth geochemistry, they represent a relatively new but promising suite of tracers in the low-temperature environment. I utilize them to decipher past changes in ocean circulation patterns, continental weathering, and ice sheet evolution on million-year to millennial time scales. Below some selected projects I am working on.

If you are interested to join the MAGIC isotope geochemistry group at Imperial College London (for research experience as an undergraduate student, a PhD, or a postdoctoral research position), please do not hesitate to get in touch.


1) History of the Antarctic Ice Sheets - Looking Back Into the Future?

The East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) is up to 4 km thick, and covers an area larger than the United States. Together with the roughly eight times smaller West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), a water mass is locked up on Antarctica that if melted would be equivalent to a sea level rise of ~60 m.

From the study of marine sediments we know that today's situation on Antarctica with a stable EAIS and a potentially unstable WAIS is just a snapshot in the Cenozoic glacial history, which has been characterized by the transition from a largely ice-free "Greenhouse world" more than 50 million years ago, to the present "Icehouse world" with ice caps on both poles.

I am particularly interested in reconstructing the extent of the Antarctic ice sheet during times of elevated warmth in the past. The most vulnerable parts of the ice sheets today are the low-lying or marine-based areas of the West and East Antarctic ice sheet. Was this also the case in the past? Studying the chemical composition of coarse sand grains and fine clay can help us answer this question and provide valuable clues for the future. The chemical fingerprint of such detritus hosts information on where it was eroded from, in turn revealing the position of the eroding ice margin.

This research has been supported by the Kristian Gerhard Jebsen Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the NERC, the IODP, the European Comission (IRG), the Royal Society, the ICDP, and the Grantham Institute for Climate Change.

Antarctic expeditions:

SWAIS 2C
From November 2023 to January 2024 I was co-chief scientist for the KIS-3 drilling of the SWAIS 2C project on the Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica

ROSS SEA IODP EXPEDITION 374
From January to March 2018 I sailed as Inorganic Geochemist aboard the drill ship Joides Resolution to recover sediment records from the Ross Sea, Antarctica.

MeBo Drilling, AMUNDSEN SEA (PS104)
From February to March 2017 I worked aboard the Polarstern using MeBO to collect sediment cores in the Amundsen Sea

WILKES LAND IODP EXPEDITION 318
From January to March 2010 I sailed as Inorganic Geochemist aboard the drill ship Joides Resolution to recover sediment records off East Antarctica.



2) The Ocean's Role in Climate Change Unraveled by Cold Water Corals

The deep ocean contains a large fraction of the carbon in the coupled ocean-atmosphere system. Therefore small changes in ocean circulation have the potential to profoundly affect the climate system. From the study of marine sediment cores we know that such changes happened in the past – some very rapidly and on short time-scales (decades), and others more gradually and on longer time-scales (millions of years).

Deep-sea corals offer two main advantages over sedimentary cores when trying to investigate recent and historical changes in the deep ocean: they can be dated radiometrically, and their skeletons record high–resolution information on past environmental conditions.

I use deep-sea corals to constrain past water mass configurations and ventilation histories by comparing neodymium and lead isotope results with radiocarbon analyses on directly dated scleractinian corals. Despite the unique nature of cold water corals as climate recorders, their potential has not yet been fully realized.

Marine expeditions:

DEEP SEA CORAL COLLECTION IN THE DRAKE PASSAGE (NBP0805)
From April to May 2008 I sailed on the Nathaniel B. Palmer to collect fossil deep sea corals from the Drake Passage.

DEEP SEA CORAL COLLECTION IN THE DRAKE PASSAGE (NBP1103)
From May to June 2011 I sailed on the Nathaniel B. Palmer to collect fossil deep sea corals from the Drake Passage.

This research has been supported by the Leverhulme Trust, the National Science Foundation, the Natural Environment Research Council,the European Comission (IRG), and the Grantham Institute for Climate Change.



3) Marine Biogeochemical Cycles of Trace Elements and Their Isotopes

Trace elements play an important role in the ocean as nutrients, as tracers of processes now and in the past, and as contaminants. Their biogeochemical cycling has direct implications for research in such diverse areas as the carbon cycle, climate change, ocean ecosystems and environmental contamination.

GEOTRACES (www.geotraces.org) is an international study of the global marine biogeochemical cycles of trace elements and their isotopes. Its mission is to identify pro cesses and quantify fluxes that control the distributions of key trace elements and their isotopes in the ocean, and to establish the sensitivity of these distributions to changing environmental conditions.

I co-organised the intercalibration phase of this program for Nd isotopes and rare earth elements (REE). Guidlines for sampling and analytical methods are available on the international GEOTRACES webpage (cookbook) and our two intercalibration papers got published in 2012 in Limnology and Oceanography Methods.

In 2010 the major field program kicked off, and we had the first UK GEOTRACES cruise (GA10) in the South Atlantic.
In 2021 GEOTRACES has been endorsed as an action of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.

Seagoing activity:

INTERCALIBRATION CRUISE KN193
In 2008 we collected >4 tonnes of water to send to laboratories around the world for intercalibration of Nd isotope and rare earth element measurements in seawater.

This research has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the Natural Environment Research Council.