(Text by YU Zhaojie, yuzhaojie@qdio.ac.cn)
Zhaojie was working on the "JOIDES Resolution" scientific research ship as an inorganic geochemist for International Ocean Drilling Program 355 cruise. Credit: Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
During my doctoral study in France sponsored by the China Scholarship Council, I participated the IODP 355 Arabian Sea Monsoon cruise through the recommendation of the French IODP Committee as an inorganic geochemist in 2015. Two months at sea with renowned marine geologists from more than a dozen countries was an amazing experience! Not only did we discuss the past evolution of the Asian monsoon, the merits and demerits of Milankovitch's theory and other scientific issues, we also celebrated our birthdays, ate food together, and played sports together. Through this cruise, I obtained valuable samples of deep-sea sediments, met good partners, and developed a strong interest in using marine sediments to reconstruct past climate and environmental evolution.
After my PhD in the year 2018, I joined the Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IOCAS), where my team and I continued to work on paleoclimate and paleoenvironment in the tropics, particularly in continental erosion and sediment transfer from source to sink.
Recently, with the support of the Natural Science Foundation and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, My team focus on reconstructing the past evolution of the South Asian Island weathering and exploring its effects on climate and marine environment ranging from thousands to millions of years, using land surface geochemistry and mineralology measurements of a variety of marine sediment cores scattered across the Indian-Pacific Oceans. These efforts can help us understand the mechanisms by which climate and weathering interact and better meet future climate and environmental challenges.
(Editor: ZHANG Yiyi)