Marine Biogeochemistry – Centre for Marine Ecosystems Research – Edith Cowan University

Dr Puigcorbé is an adjunct postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Marine Ecosystems Research at Edith Cowan University (Perth, Western Australia). Her research focuses on the use of radioisotopes as tracers of processes in the marine environment, in particular the export of particles from the sunlit surface waters to the deeper and darker twilight zone. Many elements in seawater are particle reactive and scavenge onto particles that subsequently sink through the water column. Mercury is one of them, with scavenging by marine particles exerting an important control on the residence time of mercury in surface waters. The downward mercury export flux and mercury burial rates in bottom sediments are not well-constrained in many oceanic areas, but the use of radioisotopes shall facilitate the quantification of those fluxes and thus contribute to improve our estimates of the mercury budgets in the open ocean.

Viena will be the Mercury Australia moderator for 2021.