Alexis Licht

🚨Job offer 🚨 Postdoctoral position in micropaleontology opened in our team!

A short highlight on some of our paleontologist & field collaborators in Turkey!
From right to left: K.Chris Beard, Faruk Oçakoglu, Grégoire Métais, and @mustafayk.bsky.social
Shot in an Eocene coal mine full of endemic fossils from #Balkanatolia. Many discoveries to come soon from this site.

Have you heard of our @exoceanlab.bsky.social lab? It's a new facility for experimental oceanography -- We culture, measure, and dissolve carbonates there. Register to the account to get fresh updates from what we are doing there!

This is part of our broader @dispersal-erc.bsky.social project, and includes many members of our research group at @climatecerege.bsky.social, as well as our invaluable field collaborators in Myanmar, Prof. Zaw Win and Prof. Day Wa Aung. (n/n)

This is just one of many observations we've made from our large zircon dataset. If you’re interested in tectonics and paleogeography, I encourage you to take a look at the paper—otherwise, it might be a bit tedious to read. (6/n)

But we show that there is no statistical evidence for a missing arc between India and Asia in the sedimentary zircons of the collision zone. Zircons from the area can always be explained by either a provenance from Asia, from India, or a mixture of both. (5/n)

This "Transtethyan Arc" hypothesis has been particularly popular in recent years, and has been proposed as a dispersal pathway between Africa and Asia for the Cretaceous and the Paleogene. (4/n)

The idea was to test if we can test the different India-Asia collision scenarios based on where the sediment comes from along the collision zone. One of the key hypotheses we tested is the existence of a now-missing volcanic arc between India and Asia. (3/n)

Over the past few years, we have developed statistical tools to track the provenance of zircons in eolian deposits. This provides a neat way to reconstruct the direction of surface winds based on the sediments they deposit. We applied the same tools on Asia sediment near the collision zone (2/n)

🚨New paper🚨 When studying paleoenvironments and paleogeography in Asia, at some point in your career, you have to take a stab at the India-Asia collision. Well, I just did—in a freshly published paper:
doi.org/10.1016/j.gr... (1/n)

One of the delights of living in an antique Roman city: concerts at dawn in the ruins of the amphitheater.

Check the social media account of our ERC project @dispersal-erc.bsky.social focusing on past mammalian dispersals! Multiple news to come, including neat videos and field updates.

Interested in joining our team to study past mammalian dispersals? We just opened a new postdoctoral position in climate modeling to work with me and Yannick Donnadieu at @climatecerege.bsky.social. All the info here:
emploi.cnrs.fr/Offres/CDD/U...
Application deadline on July 23.

End of the academic year meeting for our stable isotope platform, an opportunity for a good swim! with @r0seturqu0ise.bsky.social, @alexislicht.bsky.social and many others

NanoCLICS: A New Approach to Understanding Carbon Dynamics in Soils - CEREGE Isabelle Basile-Doelsch, Director of Research at INRAE and based at CEREGE, has been working for several years on the dynamics of carbon in soils, an area of particular concern for the environment.

🏅 Congratulations to Isabelle Basile-Doelsch, Research Director at INRAE/CEREGE, for winning an @erc.europa.eu Advanced Grant for her NanoCLICS project.

Learn more about her project: www.cerege.fr/en/nanoclick...

This means that dissociated zircons are not always a good tracer for past meteoritic impacts, and calls for caution when looking for evidence for ancient impact events! (n/n)

We notably show that dissociated zircons, altered zircons that are commonly used as evidence for impact cratering and airburst, can be created at much lower temperatures than expected (<1000°C). (2/n)

Low‐temperature dissociation of zircon in highly alkaline conditions: A cautionary note for studies on natural glasses of debated origin Dissociated zircon is largely used as a robust indicator of glasses generated by impact cratering and airbursts. The reaction of zircon dissociation, i.e. ‘ZrSiO4 → ZrO2 + SiO2’, requires high temper...

🚨new paper alert !🚨 In this study led by Anna Musolino and multiple @cerege.bsky.social colleagues, we tortured a bunch of zircon minerals to test their processes of alteration.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... (1/n)

@r0seturqu0ise.bsky.social presenting the first clumped isotope results acquired in our new clumped isotope facility at @climatecerege.bsky.social !

Our two weeks of work in the Eocene of Kazakhstan are now over. A fantastic field season, with many discoveries -- new fossil mammals, geological sections, and promising paleoclimatic archives. Many things to write down now, we'll keep you posted of our future publications!

US climate scientists need all the help they can get. Including from foul-mouthed comedians! 🤡😱😱

Watch Emmy Award-Winning David Cross team up with Prof Michael Oppenheimer in the US launch of the hit series "Climate Science Translated".

#climate #arresteddevelopment #climatescience

64 paleomag core in one day! Record beaten for this field season in Kazakhstan. With @mustafayk.bsky.social and Arman Seidali. Across the Eocene Oligocene Transition, hopefully.

After several days of intense logging and sampling in northeastern Kazakhstan, we just took a day off at Lake Markakol, a mountain lake close to the Chinese border (and its massive sand dunes). Amazing landscapes and a nice spot to pick microfossils from our screenwashing residue!

For #fossilFriday, a picture of our team in Kazakhstan screen-washing sediment for Eocene microfossils!

First days of fieldwork in the Eocene of Kazakhstan, looking for vertebrate remains and paleoclimatic archives. With @mustafayk.bsky.social and many others

The curse of Toumaï: an ancient skull, a disputed femur and a bitter feud over humanity’s origins The long read: When fossilised remains were discovered in the Djurab desert in 2001, they were hailed as radically rewriting the history of our species. But not everyone was convinced – and the bitter...

The best piece I have ever read on the paleontological drama that has been impacting the French academic community for the last two decades. A story of egos, ethics in academic research, and early hominids.
www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

Two junior professor chair positions are currently open at CEREGE, with a third position coming soon ! 🔬🌍

To learn more and apply, please visit our careers page: www.cerege.fr/en/le-cerege...

#PaleoEnvironment #GlobalChanges #SocioEcosystems

Second job alert! We just opened a tenure-track junior professor position at @cerege.bsky.social focusing on Pleistocene and Holocene paleoenvironments and population dynamics.
emploi.cnrs.fr/Offres/CPJ/C...
Contact me if you are interested!

Tenure-Track Junior Professor Chairs | Site Web IRD Procedures and timetable for pre-selections and auditions for junior professorships.

New job alert! We just opened a tenure-track Junior professor Chair at @cerege.bsky.social focused on the study of the critical zone in the Mediterranean and intertropical Africa. More info on the IRD website here:
en.ird.fr/tenure-track...
Contact me if you are interested!

We show that endemism started at least by 47 Ma, and possibly much earlier, in the Paleocene. Older sites are so far lacking, but we expect to publish some in the next few years (stay tuned!). With @benjaminraynaud.bsky.social @mustafayk.bsky.social and many others at @climatecerege.bsky.social