Laboratory of inorganic and isotopic organic geochemistry
CEREGE, UMR Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, IRD, INRAE, Collège de France
The Climate and Ocean Evolution Chair at the Collège de France is integrated into the UMR CEREGE, both administratively (the Collège de France being cotutelle of the UMR) and physically (the Chair is housed in the Trocadéro de l'Arbois building, a branch of the Collège de France inaugurated in 2005 and represented in the photograph above).
Edouard Bard and his colleagues at CEREGE conduct research at the interface of climatology, oceanography and geology. The main objective is to understand the natural functioning of the ocean-atmosphere-cryosphere-biosphere system on timescales ranging from a few decades to several million years. Variations in the climate system involve mechanisms with very different time constants, so a long-term perspective is crucial to distinguish the effects of climate forcings according to their geological, astronomical and anthropogenic origins. Another feature of this research is the back-and-forth flow of information between recent and older periods, including modern environments.
Edouard Bard and his team use geochemistry to determine the magnitude and chronology of climatic variations. New quantitative methods have enabled them to reconstruct past environments from a variety of archives, including ocean and lake sediments, corals, stalagmites and polar ice. The common thread is the desire to study the same climatic phenomena, such as glaciations, using complementary and innovative techniques of organic, inorganic and isotopic geochemistry, as well as isotopic geochronology. To study the past, they use "time machines" - i.e. complex mass spectrometers to measure radioactive isotopes and thus precisely date the climatic variations recorded in the various archives.
The Chair's laboratories are grouped within CEREGE's Laboratoire de Géochimie Organique Inorganique et Isotopique (LGO2i), which comprises four complementary units. The Chair was initiated by the EQUIPEX ASTER-CEREGE and is responsible for its scientific and administrative management, in partnership with other CEREGE supervisory bodies and members. The Trocadéro building at l'Arbois has been refurbished and an extension built to accommodate the AixMICADAS spectrometer, inaugurated in 2016, and the polar ice chemistry unit.
