Natasha Barbolini getting a free mud treatment after some heavy rain.
Recent findings of monsoonal activity in Asia as old as 45 million years raises the fascinating possibility that these Monsoons may have triggered a global shift from the warm ice-free Greenhouse world, to the bi-polar Icehouse conditions the Earth still experiences today. Increased erosion and weathering of the uplifted Tibetan Plateau and Himalayas is currently advocated as the primary trigger for the enigmatic pCO2 drawdown that led to global cooling and rapid growth of the Antarctic ice sheet.
I am Natasha Barbolini, a new postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Ecosystem & Landscape Dynamics. Hosted by Dr Carina Hoorn, I joined the University of Amsterdam working on the MAGIC research project: (Monsoons of Asia caused Greenhouse to Icehouse Cooling). This ERC-funded project is headed by Dr Guillaume Dupont-Nivet at the University of Potsdam, Germany.
A playa lake in the Xining Basin, surrounded by Oligocene red beds.
Ecology of the past 