Martin Senger

I obtained my degree of Licenciado en Ciencias Geológicas at the University of Buenos Aires in March 2019. The thesis is entitled "Modelo preliminar del reservorio geotérmico de Copahue", or “Preliminary Model of the geothermal reservoir in Copahue”  in english, and was supervised by Dr. Barcelona. During it, we measured thousands of fractures in the field and use this data set as input for many models.

 

I moved to Switzerland to pursue my PhD. shortly after finishing my studies in Buenos Aires, more specifically in September 2019. This was possible thanks to the Swiss Federal Comission of Scholarships, who awarded me a grant for a project entitled "Dating the Great Oxidation Event in South Africa" under the supervision of Prof. Schaltegger. Our approach included high-precision U-Pb zircon dating and analysis of the stable isotope signatures preserved in sedimentary rocks from the iconinc Transvaal Supergroup. In September 2023 I received my PhD degree from the University of Geneva, after defending my thesis entitled "The Great Oxidation and Paleoproterozoic Snowball Earth in the Transvaal Supergroup". 

 

I am currently transiting a postdoctoral position at the University of Arizona. Here, I work at the Arizona LaserChron Center and am in charge of running the Neoma ICP-MS. I am deepening my knowledge and working on detrital zircon geochronology in modern sediments. 

 

 

I use different isotopic systems, both stable and unstable, to analyze the timing and evolution of past environments. My main interest involves U-Pb geochronology on various mineral phases (mostly zircon!), including high-precision techniques (CA-ID-TIMS) as well as high-spatial resolution techniques (LA-ICP-MS). I am particularly interested in isotopic systems sensitive to changes in environmental redox conditions, such as sulfur, molybdenum, and thallium, or other environmental factors, such as oxygen, in Precambrian sedimentary rocks. Coupling U-Pb geochronology and stable isotopic systems allows me to gain insight on how past environments evolved through time. More recently, I started working on new projects that aim to assess and quantify natural biases imparted to the detrital record preserved in sedimentary rocks.