Bernhard Steinberger

I hope my writeup can convey some of the spirit and excitement of this cruise.

Our epic battle with ever-changing weather forecasts while deploying ocean bottom instruments The question what drives tectonic plates has been around since plate tectonics was first developed. In principle, the fluid dynamics is well-known but what is not well known are the material propertie...

Here is my contribution blogs.egu.eu/divisions/ts... following suggestions by Zoltan Erdös and Pauline Gayrin about our cruise in the Pacific last October. Besides the scientific motivation, it focusses on how we tried to make the most out of it given adverse weather conditions.

(3) The choice of tomography model causes the biggest variation of results. Other modelling specifics such as including lateral viscosity variations have comparatively little effect.

(2) There is a tradeoff between fitting geoid and topography, i.e. each of them can be fit individually quite well, but with different models, and it is much harder to fit them simultaneously.

(1) including chemical anomalies to compensate for thermal anomalies or downscaling lithosphere density anomalies in the continents, and cratons in particular, helps to improve the fit.

Ronghua Cui's paper on modeling geoid and dynamic topography from tomography‐based thermo‐chemical mantle convection lnkd.in/dWZFtG3v has been published! Ronghua was here for a one-year visiting postdoc Nov 2023 - Nov 2024. Our main takeaways: (cont.)

instead of writing reviews or proposals, answering mails, contribute to to other researcher's work, filling out forms etc. I think we actually got some nice results addressing continental lithosphere density and buoyancy -essentially what makes continents stick out to their elevation above sea level

I can only recommend to offer such internship, because in an effort to give the intern an impression of what a scientist ideally does in his working time, I managed to set some time aside to actually pursue, together with him, an independent own little research project which I thought of (continued)

I am very glad to share that I first-authored the very first paper published in the new diamond-open access (meaning it is free to publish AND free to read) journal Geodynamica. This paper lnkd.in/eyPAdx2X actually grew out of a high school student internship. (continued)

That's interesting! It would be in the right location at the edge of the slab in the transition zone (see our Figure 1a) like Eifel and Massif Central, but I haven't looked into whether other observations there would also be in agreement with our proposed mechanism.

What happens if subducted slabs interact with hot material at the base of the upper mantle? In Yingying Li's first paper doi.org/10.1029/2025... we show how this can lead to (secondary) upper mantle plumes. With @sasbrune.bsky.social, Eline Le Breton, Anne Glerum and @michapons.bsky.social.

Graph showing 2000 years of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. The levels are almost constant at around 280 parts per million until the beginning of the industrial revolution and the burning of fossil fuels and then the curve shoots up to 428 ppm now.

As the calendar year begins, a reminder of the rapid acceleration of carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere, driving increasingly severe #climate changes. Shown are the past 2000 years of CO2 concentrations.
Stop burning fossil fuels.

Kann man nicht oft genug teilen.

Even after 10 years, it is still important (and necessary) to demonstrate for compliance with the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Um das meiste aus dem CO2 footprint für die Forschungsfahrt im Pazifik zu machen, mache ich viele Zwischenhalte und vermeide Flüge wo möglich. climatewednesday.org/von-taipei-n... Sicher mehr Organisationsaufwand als fliegen, aber man sieht viel mehr und es ist ein großartiges Erlebnis.

Bundeskanzler Merz: Taten statt Blockaden auf der Klimakonferenz! Die Welt blickt auf die kommenden Klimaverhandlungen in Belém. Dieser Gipfel wird den Kurs für die globalen Klimamaßnahmender nächsten Jahre bestimmen – in einer Zeit, in der die Klimakrise längst Rea...

Dieses Thema liegt mir am Herzen. Bitte hier unterzeichnen: weact.campact.de/petitions/bu...

Meinung: Emissionshandel: Kippt die EU den Emissionshandel, gibt sie die Zukunft auf In der EU wächst der Widerstand gegen die marktwirtschaftliche Bekämpfung der Klimakrise. Setzen sich die Fossil-Fans dabei durch, heißt das: Europa subventioniert die Katastrophe herbei.

An article by @christianstoecker.de about my biggest worry www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft... - on this topic, see also the recent open letter, de.scientists4future.org/2178-scienti... initiated in part by @de.scientists4future.org which I also signed.

GEBCO The General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO) aims to provide the most authoritative, publicly available bathymetry data sets for the world's oceans.

Topography data from www.gebco.net, plotted with GMT

Koko Seamount (Emperor Chain) on 5-6 km deep ocean floor supposedly reaches up to -26 m! Last night Hakuhomaru passed there. In 2001 on Joides Resolution we drilled basalts to document Hawaii hotspot motion www.science.org/doi/10.1126/.... Amazing I would come to this remote place twice in my life!

Seismic Anisotropy Reveals Deep-Mantle Dynamics - Eos A new study offers insight into the viscous BLOBs at the base of Earth’s mantle.

How do BLOBs in Earth’s mantle affect seismic waves?

Research by @poulamiroy.bsky.social & @bstein.bsky.social of @gfz.bsky.social and colleagues offers new insights. eos.org/research-spo...

Seismic Anisotropy Reveals Deep-Mantle Dynamics - Eos A new study offers insight into the viscous BLOBs at the base of Earth’s mantle.

Happy to share that our recent paper on global-scale geodynamic + seismic anisotropy simulation is on Eos spotlight. With @bstein.bsky.social , Manuele Faccenda , @michapons.bsky.social
Enjoy reading! :)
eos.org/research-spo...

A cloudy day on Hess Rise. In 2019 we wrote doi.org/10.1029/2019... on the origin of Hess Rise, I can't believe now I'm actually here, on board of Hakuhomaru. But we actually want to look in the mantle beneath, for vestiges of material emplaced by the Hawaiian Plume during Emperor Chain formation

3rd paper from @poulamiroy.bsky.social's Ph.D. just out at doi.org/10.1029/2025.... Combined global models of mantle flow and anisotropy constrain deformation mechanisms and viscosity, density and hence compositional structure of lowermost mantle. With Manuele Faccenda, @michapons.bsky.social & me.

The loading has begun. For some scientific background, see my presentation docs.google.com/presentation...

... all road signs and traffic lights ...

This only considers sediments and there is probably a lot more storage capacity in basalts (e.g. Oelkers et al., 2023; doi:10.1016/j.ccst.2023.100098). Regardless, emission reduction need to be first priority, and CDR only for unavoidable emissions and removing what is already too much in the air.

Mit Ihrer Spende für den Sudan leisten Sie Hilfe zur Selbsthilfe 15,8 Millionen Sudanesen sind auf humanitäre Hilfe angewiesen. Helfen Sie jetzt mit Ihrer Spende!

Im Susan hungern über 24 Mio. Menschen wegen Dürre und eines Bürgerkriegs seit 2023, der wenig wahrgenommen wird. Jedes dritte Kind ist akut unterernährt. Ich weiß, es gibt viele Krisen und Afrika ist weit weg. Aber gerade deswegen sind Spenden wichtig. www.welthungerhilfe.de/spenden-sudan

YouTube video by Astro-Tim Was ist unter dem Yellowstone Supervulkan? Alles zum Mantel Plume! - Dr. Bernhard Steinberger

Ein sehr gutes (wie ich meine) und detailliertes interview über einige meiner Forschungsarbeiten youtu.be/YP9ceVYoOTY

My first boat trip this year - to Pfaueninsel. The next one will probably be slightly longer - a research cruise from Honolulu to Tokyo. Stay tuned for more details!