IRMIDYN - Iron mineral dynamics in soils and sediments: Moving the frontier toward in‐situ studies
ERC Advanced Grant (1.11.2018 - 31.10.2024)
About the IRMIDYN Project
The IRMIDYN project is about the dynamics of redox-driven iron mineral transformation processes in soils and sediments and impacts on nutrient and trace element behavior. We use novel approaches based on enriched stable isotopes in combination with innovative experiments and cutting-edge analytical techniques, most importantly 57Fe Mössbauer and Raman micro-spectroscopy and imaging.
The thermodynamic stability and occurrence of iron minerals in sufficiently stable Earth surface environments is fairly well understood and supported by field observations. However, the kinetics of iron mineral recrystallization and transformation processes under rapidly changing redox conditions is far less understood, and has to date mostly been studied in in mixed reactors with pure minerals or sediment slurries, but rarely in-situ in complex soils and sediments.
This project will take a large step toward a better understanding of iron mineral dynamics in redox-affected Earth surface environments, with wide implications in biogeochemistry and other fields including environmental engineering, corrosion sciences, archaeology and cultural heritage sciences, and planetary sciences.
News Feed
Iron mineral dynamics in soils and sediments - A short film about the IRMIDYN project
Have you ever heard that organisms breathe iron? Watch our short film to learn about our new approach to study iron mineral dynamics in soils and sediments in the field.
New publication reveals how aluminium substitution affects jarosite transformation to iron oxyhydroxides in the presence of aqueous Fe(II)
The new publication in Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta demonstrates how aluminium can slow the transformation of jarosite, and change the products of its transformation. Jarosite is commonly associated with acid sulfate soils, and the study sheds new light on the possible effect of Al in stabilising jarosite in flooded acid sulfate soils.
New study reveals the transformation of vivianite in intertidal sediments with contrasting sulfide conditions
The new publication in Geochimica Cosmochimica Acta explores how vivianite transformation occurs in intertidal sediments in the presence of various amounts of sulfide and calcium carbonate. The outcomes are important to understand the dynamics of P in sediments following sea level rise.