Public Relations

Franz Ossing, telephone: 0049-331-2881040, ossing@gfz-potsdam.de

Press Releases

09.05.2012 | Tons of equipment for nanograms of science

On Wednesday, 9th May 2012, a special truck with air suspension will load a 1 ton heavy secondary ion mass spectrometer (SIMS) of the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences which will then transport it to the Helmholtz Centre Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR). This event marks the beginning of a close cooperation between the two Helmholtz sister institutions in Potsdam and Dresden, which will also in future include other Helmholtz research centres and universities.

06.05.2012 | Climatic effects of a solar minimum

An abrupt cooling in Europe together with an increase in humidity and particularly in windiness coincided with a sustained reduction in solar activity 2800 years ago. Scientists from the German Research Centre for Geosciences GFZ in collaboration with Swedish and Dutch colleagues provide evidence for a direct solar-climate linkage on centennial timescales. Using the most modern methodological approach, they analysed sediments from Lake Meerfelder Maar, a maar lake in the Eifel/Germany, to determine annual variations in climate proxies and solar activity.

24.04.2012 | Rapid tsunami warning by means of GPS

For submarine earthquakes that can generate tsunamis, the warning time for nearby coastal areas is very short. Using high-precision analysis of GPS data from the Fukushima earthquake of 11 March 2011, scientists at the German Research Centre for Geosciences GFZ showed that, in principle, the earthquake magnitude and the spatial distribution can be determined in just over three minutes, allowing for a rapid and detailed tsunami early warning.