Tim Kalvelage

Residency project

Glaciers are generally perceived as icy deserts devoid of life. Recent research, however, has shown that these frozen environments harbour a huge diversity of microorganisms.

During my residency at GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam and iC3 in Tromsø, I will explore how microbes living on and below glaciers cope with the extreme conditions they face and how they affect the earth system: from accelerating glacier retreat and sea level rise, to greenhouse gas production and the release of nutrients and toxic metals from rock flour, which are washed into the ocean and can have positive or negative impacts on marine food webs.