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Giant submarine landslides (10-2000 km3) are found in the thick Quaternary sediment succession of passive continental margins. Their ages coincide with periods of sea-level fall and rise, but it is unclear how such vast failures can be triggered on low seafloor slopes (

Current Earth Observation systems provide operational tools to derive areal evapotranspiration (ET) for drought monitoring and sustainable management of agricultural water. But partitioning ET into transpiration T and evaporation E is also key for targeting plant water use efficiency and plant water

The alteration of mantle rocks at low temperature on the seafloor can produce layered double hydroxide (LDH). LDH formation is poorly constrained whereas recent studies suggest that it could be associated with hydrogen production and CO2 sequestration in the oceanic lithosphere. The project aims at

Soils are key regulators of the global carbon (C) cycle. Organic amendments of soils are considered suitable to sequester C belowground and contribute to climate change mitigation. With the evolution of biomass recovery systems and the use of energy plants, agriculturally used organic amendments hav

In the context of the current continuing greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere, it is essential to turn to the past to understand how the climate system behaves. A particularly interesting problem is the shift in Earth's climate response to orbital forcing during the 'Mid-Pleistocene transition

A better understanding of chemical processes is necessary to evaluate their impact to the atmospheric composition changes and more generally to the air quality and climate. Between the different transformations processes, oxidation pathway represents one of the most important in atmospheric condense

Nitrogen, N, represents 78% of the air we breathe, under the stable and inert form of N2, and once N2 is converted into reactive forms (Nr), it becomes a key nutrient that strongly influences ecosystem functioning and food production. The quantification of N budgets (N inputs and outputs) between th

The question of sea-level upraise in relationship to East Antarctica Ice Sheet (EAIS) dynamics is a major question in the context of climate change. The presumed stability of the EAIS and thus of little impact from this zone for the Sea Level Rise (SLR) actually stands on little data on the coast, a

Evaporites are of great interest to reconstruct past temperatures in continental settings as they are the result of either water column evaporation or from pore waters. However, the existing proxies to achieve these reconstructions are quite limited. We have developed a new paleo-thermometer based

Strike-slip faults are thought to create lower magnitude earthquakes and smaller tsunamis, if at all, compared to subduction zones. However, strike-slip faults have recently produced tsunamis larger than anticipated, highlighting that their seismic and tsunamigenic potential is likely underestimated

On regional and global scales, tropospheric ozone is a key compound controlling atmospheric oxidation capacity and an important driver of climate change. On a local scale, ozone is a criteria air pollutant that has detrimental effects on human health and natural ecosystems. Although having successfu

As global population drastically rises, so too does the risk posed to humankind by destructive earthquake rupturing faults. Understanding how, why, and when active faults rupture the Earth’s crust is therefore a first-order question in the Earth Sciences, and to society as a whole. We cannot pred

In a changing climate, RH is a key-parameter to consider when assessing interactions between land (vegetation, water surface) and atmosphere. The PAST-17 project aims at capitalizing on the recent development in the triple oxygen isotope (17O-excess) analysis of biogenic silica to quantify the evolu

Viruses have multiple and globally significant biogeochemical impacts via the metabolic reprogramming and mortality (lysis) of their microbial hosts. Viral lysis modulates food-web dynamics by diverting the living biomass away from higher trophic levels and redirecting it into the microbial loop. Th

Antimony (Sb) is one of the most enriched elements in urban environments but also the least studied. Given its potential toxicity, it is therefore very important to identify the impact of Sb on the environmental compartments accumulating this emerging contamination. Despite the fact that significant

Monoterpenes are massively emitted by vegetation and undergo rapid gas- phase oxidation by OH, O3, and NO3. Their oxidation generates oxygenated first-generation terpene oxidation products (FGTOP) which are semi-volatiles and could lead to the formation of SOA or condense on existing surface. FGTOP

During each of the nine glacial-interglacial transitions of the past 800 000 years (800 ka), often referred to as “glacial terminations”, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations (pCO2) rose by 50-100 ppm within a few thousand years, yielding important feedbacks on deglacial warming. Despite the ce

In front of the increasing societal demand for deep-sea mining and the future quantification and exploitation of the deep-sea mineral resources, it is of importance to better understand the contribution of the microbial compartment on the mineral alteration processes that can participate to the modi

The fate of the Antarctic ice sheet is the largest source of uncertainty in future sea level projections. The magnitude and sign of the Antarctic contribution indeed results from the compensation of two opposite effects: increased surface mass gain and increased ocean-induced dynamical mass loss, bo

Recent observations suggest that oceanic fracture zones (OFZ) have a major influence on the dynamic of subduction zones with production of more earthquakes and lavas with distinct composition in regions where OFZ are subducting. The goal of SOFT is to understand how and why OFZ control the short-ter

The dinoflagellates are one of the three major phytoplankton groups in modern oceans. They are known since the beginning of the Mezozoic (± 250 million years ago), but what is their origin? Several Proterozoic and in particular Palaeozoic acritarchs (± 540 to 250 million years ago) that are among th

(MPC)2 (Microphysical Process Characterization of Mixed Phase Clouds in the European Arctic) project comprehensively aims at reaching a better understanding of key climate processes in the Arctic, the region experiencing the most drastic changes, and where uncertainties in projections of future chan

Microplastic (MP) pollution has become a critical anthropogenic issue in aquatic environments, threatening ecosystem structure, functions, services and values. Rivers are major roads of MPs and, at the land-ocean interface, estuaries are a pathway by which MPs enter the ocean. Macrotidal estuaries a

Badlands are places of intense erosion and key producers of sediment and carbon fluxes to the Mediterranean sea. CLIMBAD aims at predicting future badland erosion under climate change. Badland erosion is driven by rainfall amount and intensity but is strongly reduced by vegetation cover. On the

The objective of the ALPHA-O3 project is to create a consortium of top laboratories for taking atmospheric ozone remote sensing measurements to the next level of accuracy: to perform the first measurements at the %-accuracy level. Ozone is a key molecule for atmospheric composition and climate chan

Internal tides are ubiquitous high­-frequency motions that play a key role in the ocean. They are a major source of mixing, thereby impacting climate, and contribute to the transport of biogeochemical species. They further contaminate measurements in the ocean, constituting a challenge to exploit ob

Stratocumulus clouds are boundary-layer clouds that reflect a significant amount of the incoming solar radiation and that organize in various ways. Errors in representing such clouds in climate models are responsible for systematic biases and uncertainties in global warming projections. This projec

In the Southern Ocean, insufficient supplies of nutrients such as iron or silicon can affect the functioning of the biological carbon pump with large consequences on climate. Material of glacial origin (MGO) provided by the melting of ice caps represents one of the sources of these nutrients. But th

A better understanding of past climate variations and their interactions with geosphere and biosphere is essential to understand future climatic changes. Most of the available paleoenvironmental proxies were developed for and applied to oceanic environments. However, it is essential to develop new p

The early Palaeozoic biodiversification is the most significant radiation of marine ecosystems of Earth’s History, with two major pulses documented from diversity datasets: the 'Cambrian Explosion’ and the 'Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event’. However, in recent years, it became obvious that

The reconstruction of Earth’s environmental conditions over geological history is commonly based on the chemical and isotopic composition of carbonate minerals. The robust interpretation of chemical and isotopic signals in these archives requires understanding of the mechanisms controlling elemental