The “Great Mauritanian Wall” – a striking chain of cold-water coral mounds rising up to 150 m and extending over 400 km along the Mauritanian continental slope – is among the largest deep-sea coral carbonate build-ups known to date. While these mounds are now sparsely populated by living corals, their sheer size points to extensive reef development during past climate periods. Previous studies based on ~10 m-long gravity cores have revealed rapid phases of mound aggradation (~1 m/kyr) during the last glacial and deglacial, followed by stagnation during the Holocene. MeBo-drill cores (up to 70 m long), newly recovered during Cluster expedition MSM127, now provide unprecedented records to reconstruct the long-term development of the Mauritanian mounds over multiple glacial-interglacial cycles, including past warmer periods, and allow to investigate the response of benthic deep-sea ecosystems to environmental change (e.g. regional paleoceanographic shifts, episodic Green Sahara freshwater discharge). Integrating these new insights with high-resolution multibeam bathymetry and Parasound/seismic data and with results of Cluster expedition MSM133 on regional internal wave activity, sandy bedform development, and nepheloid layers will enable the investigation of the spatial variability of coral mound morphologies and its interaction with sediment dynamics related to submarine canyons, bedform fields and large-scale landslides. With this joint approach, the PhD project aims to unravel the interplay between benthic ecosystem dynamics, lateral organic matter transport, regional (paleo)environmental conditions, and the complex geomorphological and sedimentological setting off Mauritania. It offers a unique opportunity to work at the frontier of marine geoscience and paleoceanography, using cutting-edge technologies.
Further Reading
- Bickert and cruise participants (2024) MeBo deep-sea drilling off Mauritania: the response of ecosystems, upwelling and methane seepage to climate change, Cruise No. MSM127, 18.03. – 20.04.2024, Las Palmas – Las Palmas (Canary Islands). MARIA S. MERIAN-Berichte. Begutachtungspanel Forschungsschiffe, Bonn 1-85. doi:10.48433/cr_msm127
- Westphal and cruise participants (2014) Phaeton – Paleoceanographic and paleo-climatic record on the Mauritanian Shelf – Cruise No. MSM16/3 – October 13 – November 20, 2010 – Bremerhaven (Germany) – Mindelo (Cap Verde) MARIA S MERIAN-Berichte. DFG-Senatskommission für Ozeanographie;, Bremen 1-57. doi:10.2312/cr_msm16_3
- Wienberg, C, Titschack, J, Freiwald, A, Frank, N, Lundälv, T, Taviani, M, Beuck, L, Schröder-Ritzrau, A, Krengel, T and Hebbeln, D (2018) The giant Mauritanian cold-water coral mound province: Oxygen control on coral mound formation. Quaternary Science Reviews, 185. 135-152. doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2018.02.012
- Wienberg C, Freiwald A, Frank N, Mienis F, Titschack J, Orejas C, Hebbeln D (2023) Cold-Water Coral Reefs in the Oxygen Minimum Zones Off West Africa. In: Cordes E, Mienis F (eds) Cold-Water Coral Reefs of the World. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp. 199-235
Modalities
The doctoral project will be supervised by Dierk Hebbeln and Elda Miramontes (University of Bremen) and supervised within the working group “Marine Sedimentology ” at the MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen. The remuneration corresponds to pay group TV-L 13 with 75% of the weekly working hours for a fixed-term period of 4 years, starting January 1st 2026 the earliest and until at most December 31, 2029 (according to § 2 WissZeitVG) with the aim of obtaining a doctorate.
The project mentoring team also includes: Claudia Wienberg and Jürgen Titschack (MARUM).
Main Tasks
- Scientific research in the field of:
Marine Geosciences, Palaeoceanography, Sedimentology, Hydroacoustics - Analysis of:
MeBo drill cores (computed tomography data processing, dating of corals, grain size analysis) and hydroacoustic data (MBES, sub-bottom profiling, seismics, ADCP) - Writing of scientific publications
- Participation in ship expeditions
- Participation in international conferences
Formal Requirements:
Completed scientific university degree (Master/University diploma or comparable) in Marine Geosciences.
You are interested?
Please send your application with your complete and informative documents, quoting the reference number A179-25, by 25.07.2025 as a PDF file (max. 5 MB) by unencrypted electronic mail to: office-exc-oceanfloor@uni-bremen.de
or by mail to:
MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen
University of Bremen
Prof. Dr. Heiko Pälike
Leobener Street 8
28359 Bremen
Bremen, Germany
Further questions?
Questions about the project can be addressed to Dierk Hebbeln (dhebbeln@marum.de) or Elda Miramontes (emiramon@uni-bremen.de).
Notes for Applicants
Please do not enclose any original certificates or references with your application documents. Please note that no photos are to be attached to the application documents. Please also do not use folders or transparencies. Application documents will only be returned on request if you enclose a sufficiently stamped envelope. Personal data is subject to restrictive access control to ensure that only authorized persons can access your data. In principle, your application data will only be used by the responsible application-processing personnel departments of the partner institutions of the cluster. Your application data will not be used for any other purpose or passed on to third parties. By sending us your application documents, we assume that you consent to the collection of your personal data. As soon as your application data is no longer used for the defined purpose of processing your application, it will be deleted immediately in compliance with data protection regulations. If you receive a written rejection, your application documents will be kept until the deadline in accordance with § 15 Allgemeines Gleichbehandlungsgesetz (AGG) has expired and then destroyed. The extent to which costs for the application can be reimbursed must be checked on a case-by-case basis.
Find out more information about this opportunity here.