 Appy pointing out where he drilled recently near the North Pole.
by Flip Schrameijer
The Dutch geobiologist Appy Sluijs received the ‘Outstanding Young Scientist Award 2007’ of the European Geosciences Union (EGU). The EGU is the largest society of Earth and planetary sciences in Europe. Its members are researchers in all sorts of geosciences such as geology, geophysics, climatology, oceanography and space science.
Sluijs did geobiological research that can help predict the climate of the future. So he made a contribution, which is at the heart of the present debate about climate change. At the age of 26 he is the youngest ever to receive this award. I visit him at the university of Utrecht at the Institute of Environmental Biology. His microscope and two small desks - his and a colleague’s – barely leave space for two chairs. Sluijs doesn’t care much about his office. It’s all about science for him.
Why did you win this award?
 Fossil dinoflagellate cyst, about 0.1 mm wide. See box for explanation.
“Nobody was there, so we have to look for tell-tale signs. I used a group of algae – like the ones you have to scrape off the inside of your aquarium – which are called ‘dinoflagellates’.  Fossil dinoflagellate cyst, about 0.1 mm wide. See box for explanation.
“Specifically, I studied climate change during an episode, some 55 Million years ago, in which the Earth released a giant fart of CO2 into the atmosphere, much like today but then through a natural cause. On average, the earth warmed by about 5 degrees Celsius and the oceans acidified (became more acid). Such changes had strong effects on marine ecosystems and caused extinctions at that time. Some of such changes in ecosystems will be hard to prevent, even if we reduce the use of fossil fuels, such as natural oil and gas.”
Dinoflagellates are a type of protists, microscopically small unicellular organisms. Some can do photosynthesis, like plants, and therefore are algae. After sexual reproduction they form a so-called cyst, a small organic shell, which helps them to survive at the sea floor during periods of hibernation. The cysts have typical shapes and ornamentations by which different species can be recognised. See also here
|
 |
Were you the best in your class in highschool and a real nerd?
“No. I belonged to the better half, my grades were above average, but not extreme. My best subjects were biology, physics, chemistry, math and art.
I didn’t do much homework. I played football on a reasonable level for a while. As so many Dutch families, we used to spend our holidays in France, where we walked in nature and did some bird-watching. I learned a lot from my dad who is a biology teacher. I have always been interested in nature. It runs in the family: many of my nephews and nieces have the same passion, although I am the first in my family to get a PhD.”
How did you get into geobiology?
“In high school I didn’t even know geobiology existed. I really wanted to study environmental sciences at university, but this was only possible from the second year onwards. For the first year you had a choice between nine different subjects. I chose biology because I thought this would be the best preparation for an environmental sciences study.”
“If someone had said, when I was fifteen, that only eight years later I would go reconstruct the Earth’s climate of 55 Million year ago, I would say he was crazy!”
“My interest in evolution and time scales of millions of years was aroused much earlier, at a time when dinosaurs were a hype. I found it fascinating to imagine that the world looked completely different millions of years ago. I liked time scales because they are all so unimaginable. You can perhaps imagine a time span of ten years, but one generation is much harder already and ten a thousand or a hundred thousand years are almost impossible to imagine. So how about a million, or many millions of years?”
“During the first year of biology, we got subjects with a geobiological flavour. I never knew how fascinating it was to know about the workings of the earth, to realize it’s a system that changes all the time, although we don’t notice it. When it appeared that the start of the second year would focus much more on geobiology, I decided to stay with biology.”
Did you become a nerd then?
“Well, I had odd jobs to make some extra money, I played the guitar and went out with my friends - and still do. But I must admit, that changed towards the end of my studies. When I was doing my first research subject in Utrecht, I spent much more time on my studies. Even more so when I did my last internship at the University of California in Santa Cruz.”
 Lowering the drill bit to the sea floor, 3000 metres below the ship
“The ocean was three to four kilometres deep and we drilled 400 metres into the seabed. During the drilling, pvc-pipes of about 10 centimetres in diametre are brought on deck. They are full of sediment layers that accumulated on the seafloor during the past 80 million years. If you cut these open, you can see and analyse all the geological layers and the fossils they contain. For instance you can see the result of the asteroid impact 65 million years ago, which killed the dinosaurs. You find different fossils before and after this event, because – like other species - many marine planktons became extinct.  Appy and his colleagues studying the drill cores with the red clay layer between the white chalk layers.
“The expedition lasted two months. I’ve also been on an expedition in Wyoming (US), where we studied mammal fossils in the desert that are preserved in fossil soils. That too was really adventurous. One day a storm came through our camp and ruined our tent and some gear. This year we’ll go on expedition to Spitsbergen at the rim of the Arctic Ocean."
 Prof. Jan Smit (VU Amsterdam) in Spain pointing out the 65 million-years-old clay layer, which is found all over the world. It marks the asteroid impact that killed the dinos.
 Appy and his colleagues relaxing on Copacabana beach near Rio de Janeiro before going on board the drilling ship.
Watch the film showing life on board of the expedition ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and Appy at his institute.
 Click the picture to play the movie!
Sources
Homepage of Appy Sluijs.
See here how drilling in the deep ocean is done. See also article.
EGU Outstanding Young Scientist Award 2007 page.
See the cover of Appy's PhD thesis, painted by his mother. It shows the same dinoflagellate as the one in the top photo migrating towards the North Pole during a hot period 55 million years ago.
Powered by AkoComment! |
