LIAG seminar: Climate and environmental variability in the eastern equatorial Atlantic and the northern Neotropics

LIAG welcomes all interested parties to its biweekly LIAG seminar, featuring exciting presentations on research and technology, held on Tuesdays at 11:00 a.m. at the Geozentrum Hannover or online via Webex. The presentations, with a duration of roughly 30 minutes, are followed by a discussion and are held in either German or English, depending on the announcement. The entire programme is published by LIAG.

On Tuesday, 11 November 2025, Rodrigo Martínez-Abarca will give a presentation in English on the topic: 

Climate and environmental variability in the eastern equatorial Atlantic and the northern Neotropics: from orbital cycles to human activity

Abstract: This talk explores climate and environmental variability in the eastern equatorial Atlantic and northern Neotropics during the Late Quaternary. Marine sediments from ODP Site 663, analyzed with X-Ray Fluorescence geochemistry, reveal orbital- and halfprecessional-scale dynamics of the West African Monsoon over the last 1.25 million years. In contrast, lipid biomarkers and elemental data from Lake Petén Itzá sediments document hydroclimate variability during the past 400 thousand years, shaped by hemispheric-scale changes and human activity in Central America. Together, these records highlight the sensitivity of tropical systems to external and internal forcing and their relevance for understanding past and future climate change in densely populated regions.