Dr Katharina Hochmuth - Marine Geophysicist, Postdoctoral Researcher, university of Tasmania and ACEAS
Meet Katharina
Katharina is focused on reconstructing sedimentation behaviour from various ice streams through time. These reveal regional changes in the ice sheet and erosional dynamics. She looks forward to collecting new datasets on the 2023/24 Denman Terrestrial Expedition to understand better this unsurveyed and vulnerable part of the East Antarctic ice sheet.
Biography
After obtaining her PhD at the Alfred-Wegener-Institute Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research on plate tectonic reconstruction of the West Pacific and its Large Igneous Provinces, Katharina embarked on a project to reconstruct the paleobathymetry of the Southern Ocean to map large scale developments in sedimentation and plate-tectonics throughout the Cenozoic. This first compilation of all available reflection seismic data revealed astonishing basin-wide developments within the Southern Ocean and allows for more realistic boundary conditions for paleoocean- and ice-sheet modelling.
In 2019, Katharina joined the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom to work with the European Consortium of Ocean Research Drilling (ECORD) Science Operator as part of the International Ocean Discovery Project (IODP). In this operational-focused role, Katharina served as the petrophysics staff scientist on IODP Expedition 386 “Japan Trench Paleoseismology”, as well as an operator representative on, e.g. the IODP Science Evaluation Panel, supporting researchers towards a successful IODP expedition. Katharina will sail as downhole-logging specialist on IODP Exp. 395: “Reykjanes Ridge: Mantle Convection and Climate” (2023), which focuses on understanding the behaviour of ocean gateways in interplay with a mantle plume and an evolving ice sheet.
Katharina has extensive experience in shipboard geoscientific data collection, having participated in multiple research expeditions to the Southern Ocean as well as to the central Pacific. She enjoys collecting data hands-on on deck as well as in the lab. The highlight of her seagoing career so far, was expedition PS-104 to the Amundsen Sea Embayment, which included the first ever use of a seafloor drill rig on the Antarctic continental shelves.
As part of the organizational team of the “Glacial Sediment School” – a PhD training school about polar sediments from both poles, Katharina enjoys teaching and supporting other early career researchers on their PhD journeys.
Email:
Katharina.Hochmuth@utas.edu.au
Scientific Committee Membership
SCAR-INSTANT (Scientific Committee of Antarctic Research Scientific Research Programme: Instabilities and Thresholds in Antarctica)
SCAR-INSTANT subgroup: Antarctic Geological Boundary Conditions
Awards:
NERC (UK) IODP Moratorium funding: “Wire-line tap on the construction of the North Atlantic Deep Water” – Exp. 395C
Travel Grant through SCAR Capacity Building, Education and Training (CBET) Committee for the attendance of Polar2018 SCAR/IASC Open Science Conference in Davos, Switzerland
Publications:
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