Experimental Oceanography Laboratory
– A visionary and collective expertise redefining ocean-climate science.
ExoCean is an Oceanography Laboratory that brings together a team of early-career scientists with complementary expertise, united by the shared goal of better understanding the ocean’s role in the global carbon cycle. Their work combines innovation, curiosity, and a collaborative spirit to develop new tools and insights into climate systems.
Together, the team is developing a shared research framework around the oceanic carbonate system—one that connects surface ecosystems, sedimentary records, and deep-sea feedbacks.
At the center of the project are three researchers whose approaches bridge biology, geochemistry, and sedimentary processes:
- Thomas Chalk, ERC awardee and lead of the ForCry project, developing laser ablation techniques for sample analysis with “ice pucks”, which are a novel way to hold samples in place during analysis without external contamination. His goal is to reconstruct past ocean pH and CO₂ at high spatial and temporal scales.
- Julie Meilland, a pioneer in planktonic foraminifera reproduction and in vitro culture. Her work—ranging from cultured experiments to field-based studies—helps clarify the living conditions and carbon export role of these key calcifying organisms, contributing essential knowledge on the biological carbon pump.
- Olivier Sulpis, ERC grantee behind the Deep-C project, explores deep-sea carbonate dissolution under high pressure, unveiling how marine sediments act as a long-term CO₂ sink and contribute to Earth’s climate regulation.
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Their key questions span from surface to deep-sea:
- What controls spatial variability in oceanic carbon fluxes?
- How are carbon fluxes impacted by calcifying plankton population dynamics?
- What is the future of ocean biogenic carbon production and export?
- How sensitive is climate change to initial climate conditions?
- How do deep-sea processes mitigate anthropogenic CO₂?
- And how are human activities already leaving traces in the sediment record?
What we do, and how we do it, in a few pictures:
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The CEREGE, in the plateau de l'Arbois, Aix-en-Provence
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CEREGE is located in Provence, next to Marseille, that hosts the National Park of the Callanques
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The RV Pelagia at the Cape Town port
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Operating the multinet at night, to catch as much plankton as possible
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MSc student Robin van Dijk looking at freshly retrieved pteropod samples
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Closely watching a piece of the seafloor, that just came back from 5 km-deep
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A reactor that reproduces pressures of up to 500 bars, to simulate abyssal environments in the lab
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Lab-made ripple marks on a rotating sediment disk
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A 3D, simulated stack of seashells, representing a typical deep-sea, carbonate-rich sediment
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A map of the parts of the ocean that are experiencing human-made seafloor dissolution