Prof. Dr. Dominik Fleitmann
ProfessorPhilosophisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät
Departement Umweltwissenschaften
FG Fleitmann
Professor
Bernoullistrasse 30/32
4056
Basel
Schweiz
Research Interest
As a Quaternary geologist and palaeoclimatologist I am working on a variety of climate archives, including speleothems (stalagmites, flowstones), lacustrine sediments, spring carbonates and corals from Europe, the Middle East and Indian Ocean. One primary goal of my research is to construct precisely-dated and highly-resolved time series that provide new insights into climatic and environmental processes over a variety of geologic timescales, ranging from seasonal to glacial/interglacial cycles. It is therefore not surprising that my research interests and experience span a wide range of topics from paleoclimate, geochemistry, hydrology, biology, meteorology to archaeology and climate modelling. Because of the strong interdisciplinary nature of my research, I have developed a rich network of national and international collaborations.
Academic Appointments
| since 2019 | Full Professor in Quaternary Geology, Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Basel, Switzerland |
| 2012-2019 | Full Professor (Chair in Palaeoclimatology and Archaeology), Department of Archaeology and Centre for Past Climate Change, School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Sciences, University of Reading, UK |
| 2006-2012 | SNF-Professor (Associate Professor), Institute of Geological Sciences and Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Switzerland |
| 2005- 2006 | Senior postdoctoral researcher, Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts, USA |
| 2003-2005 | Postdoctoral research scholar, Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences, Stanford University, USA |
| 2001-2003 | Postdoctoral research scientist, Institute of Geological Sciences, University of Bern, Switzerland |
| 1997-2001 | Ph.D. student, Institute of Geological Sciences, University of Bern, Switzerland |
| 1994-1997 | Graduate research assistant, Institute and Museum for Geology and Palaeontology, University of Göttingen, Germany |
Education
| 2002 | Ph.D. in Geology, “Annual to millennial Indian Ocean monsoon variability recorded in Holocene and Pleistocene stalagmites from Oman”, University of Bern, Switzerland |
| 1997 | Diploma in Geology, “Clastic input into the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden by the Arabian monsoon - Analysis of piston cores”, Institute and Museum for Geology and Palaeontology, University of Göttingen, Germany |
Awards and Honors
| 2009 | Editor’s Choice (2009). “Dates in a Cave”. Science, 326, 503 |
| 2007 | Editor’s Choice (2007). “Washing soils away”. Science, 315, 1339 |
| 2002 | Award for “Best Research in Yemen”, Yemeni Scientific Research Foundation, Sana'a, Yemen Science Conference 2002 in Taiz, Yemen |
| 2002 | Travel award of the IGBP poster session, Swiss Global Change Day 2002, Bern, Switzerland |
| 2001 | Poster award, EURESCO Conference "Achieving climate predictability using paleoclimate data", Castelvecchio, Italy |
| 2000 | Outstanding Student Poster Award, American Geophysical Union, AGU 2000 Fall Meeting, San Francisco, California |
Professional Service
| 2020-present | Review Panel ANR (Agence Nationale de la Recherche), France |
| 2019-present | Advisory member of INQUA Palaeoclimate Commission (PALCOM) |
| 2018 | DFG Reviewer of Clusters of Excellence Funding Line, Cologne, Germany |
| 2017-2019 | Director of Centre for Past Climate Change, University of Reading, UK |
| 2017-2018 | Member of the Scientific Committee of the 9th International Symposium on Eastern Mediterranean Geology (ISEMG), Turkey, 2018 |
| 2016-2019 | Programme Director MSc. Environmental Archaeology, University of Reading, UK |
| 2016 | Reviewer of DFG Collaborative Research Centres proposal “Scales of Transformation: Human-environmental Interaction in Prehistoric and Archaic Societies”, University of Kiel, Germany |
| 2015-2018 | Archaeology panel member of the Arts & Humanities Research Council South, West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership |
| 2015-2016 | co-coordinator of a highly successful Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) entitled “Our Changing Climate: Past, Present and Future” which attracted several thousand participants since 2015 |
| 2014 | Interim Director of Postgraduate Research Studies Department of Archaeology, University of Reading, UK |
| 2014 | Panel Chair, Workshop on “Mediterranean Holocene Climate and Human Societies”, April 2014, Costa Navarino, Greece |
| 2014-2017 | Committee member PAGES Euro_Med2k working group |
| 2012-2015 | Steering Committee Member of the Centre for Past Climate Change (CPCC), University of Reading, UK |
| 2013 | Organizer of PAGES Euro_Med2k workshop, University of Reading, Reading, UK |
| 2015-2015 | Director of the Scientific Archaeology Research Group (SARG), University of Reading, Reading, UK |
| 2012-2016 | Steering Committee Member of the Walker Institute, University of Reading, UK |
| 2012 | Contributing author to Chapter 5 “Information from Paleoclimate Archives”. In: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) |
| 2011-present | Editor “Climate of the Past” |
| 2011 | Co-Editor PAGES Newsletter on “The Medieval Climate Anomaly”, PAGES Newsletter, 2011 |
| 2009 | Member of the scientific committee, 62nd Geological Congress of Turkey, 13.-17.04.2009, Ankara, Turkey |
| 2008 | Editor PAGES Newsletter on “Advances in Speleothem Research”, PAGES Newsletter Vol. 16,No. 3, August 2008 |
| 2007-present | Member of the scientific advisory board, Climate Risk Analysis (a research company for analysing risks of extreme climate events, owned by Dr. Manfred Mudelsee). (www.manfredmudelsee.com) |
| 2007-2011 | Member of the public relation group at the Institute of Geological Sciences, University of Bern, Switzerland |
| 2006 | Contributing author to Chapter 5 “Palaeoclimate”. In Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) |
External Funding
| 2019-2026 | Institute of Basic Science (IBS), South Korea: “Reconstruction of Past Hydroclimate”, approx.12,730,000 KRW (10,103,971 CHF); declined due to job opportunity at the Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Basel, Switzerland. |
| 2018-2021 | AHRC SWW Doctoral Training Partnership “A critical evaluation of the influence of environmental and geological factors on the Late Bronze Age collapse in the eastern Mediterranean”, D. Fleitmann and T. Hodos, £67,500. |
| 2017-2018 | NERC Facility Grant (IP-1753-1117) “Droughts and societal transformations in the Fertile Crescent during the Holocene Period”, £52,500. |
| 2017-2020 | AHRC SWW Doctoral Training Partnership, “The Neolithic transitions and climate” D. Fleitmann and A. Pike, £65,000. |
| 2017-2020 | AHRC SWW Doctoral Training Partnership, “Climate change and socio-economic transformations in the Late Antiquity of the Middle East” D. Fleitmann and A. Gascoigne, £65,000. |
| 2017-2020 | SCENARIO NERC Doctoral Training Partnership, “Evolution of monsoon rainfall in climate models and palaeoclimate observations over the last millennium”. A. Turner and Fleitmann, £65,000. |
| 2017-2020 | SCENARIO NERC Doctoral Training Partnership, “Trace-element incorporation into stalagmite calcite as a paleo-volcanic record: a chemical perspective”. R. Grau-Crespo, D. Fleitmann, S. Black, £65,000. |
| 2016-2017 | NERC Isotope Geosciences Laboratory (NIGL) proposal (IP-1646-0516) “Arabian speleothem records of environmental change and hominid dispersal – testing the veracity of U-Pb age data”. D. Fleitmann, S. Black and D. Condon, £53,798. |
| 2016-2019 | National Science Foundation (NSF) “CNH-L: Pastoral territoriality as a dynamic coupled system”. M. Moritz, J. McCorriston, K. E. Cole, C.S. Larsen, S. Ivory, D. Fleitmann, 1,597,788 USD. |
| 2015 | Diamond Light Source Experiment 11726, “Timing and nature of major volcanic eruptions in stalagmites II”. D. Fleitmann and S. Black, £57,564. |
| 2015 | Centre for Past Climate Change (CPCC), University of Reading, “Introducing molecular-level modelling in the CPCC activities: an investigation of trace-element incorporation in stalagmite (calcite) as a palaeovolcanic record”. R. Grau-Crespo, D. Fleitmann, S. Black, £2,000. |
| 2014-2017 | German Science Foundation (DFG), “Hydrology induced variations in the 14C reservoir in stalagmites and reconstruction of atmospheric 14C concentrations”. J. Fohlmeister, N. Frank, D. Fleitmann, 253.000 EUR. |
| 2014 | Diamond Light Source Experiment 9932, “Timing and nature of major volcanic eruptions in stalagmites”. D- Fleitmann and S. Black, £57,570. |
| 2013-2015 | Swiss National Science Foundation, “STALCLIM II – Multi-proxy climatic and environmental reconstructions from stalagmites from Switzerland, Turkey, Arabia and India”. R. Kipfer, D. Fleitmann and 4 CO-PIs, 382,200 CHF. |
| 2013-2015 | NERC Isotope Geosciences Laboratory (NIGL) proposal, “Pliocene and Pleistocene pluvial periods in Arabia – Implications for hominid dispersal and the Indian Monsoon: A U-Pb speleothem scoping study”. D. Fleitmann, S. Black and D. Condon, £29,800. |
| 2014 | University of Reading PhD Studentship. D. Fleitmann. Amount awarded: £48,000 (candidate declined fellowship due to another job offer). |
| 2013-2016 | University of Reading PhD Studentship. D. Fleitmann and S. Black, Amount awarded: £62,000. |
| 2012-2013 | German Science Foundation (DFG) Schwerpunktprogramm 1266 ”Integrierte Analyse zwischeneiszeitlicher Klimadynanik” (INTERDYNAMIK), “Dynamics of Mid-latitude/Mediterranean climate during the last 150 ka: Black Sea/Northern Anatolian Paleoenvironmental reconstructions (DynNAP)”. H. Behling; H. Arz and D. Fleitmann, 105,000 EUR. |
| 2011-2012 | Swiss National Science Foundation, “Determination of paleotemperatures using fluid inclusion liquid-vapour homogenization in speleothems: Correction of the measured temperature data”. M. Frenz and D. Fleitmann, 108,400 CHF. |
| 2011-2013 | Swiss National Science Foundation, “STALCLIM – Multi-proxy climatic and environmental reconstructions from stalagmites from Switzerland, Turkey, Arabia and India”. D. Fleitmann and 5 Co-PIs, 1,643,000 CHF. |
| 2010-2011 | Swiss National Science Foundation, “Climate and environmental changes recorded in Late Quaternary lake deposits in the Arabian Desert”. F. Preusser and D. Fleitmann, 69,700 CHF. |
| 2010-2012 | Swiss National Science Foundation, “Holocene to Late-Pleistocene paleoclimatic changes in Turkey and the eastern Mediterranean recorded in speleothems – PART II”. D. Fleitmann, 527,765 CHF. |
| 2009-2011 | German Science Foundation (DFG) Schwerpunktprogramm 1266 ”Integrierte Analyse zwischeneiszeitlicher Klimadynanik (INTERDYNAMIK)”, “Dynamics of Mid-latitude/Mediterranean climate during the last 150 ka: Black Sea/Northern Anatolian Paleoenvironmental reconstructions (DynNAP)”. H. Behling; H. Arz and D. Fleitmann, 208,500 EUR. |
| 2008-2010 | Swiss National Science Foundation, “Determination of paleotemperatures using fluid inclusion liquid-vapour homogenization in speleothems”. M. Frenz and D. Fleitmann, 388,000 CHF. |
| 2007-2011 | Swiss National Science Foundation, “Paleoclimate history of Saudi Arabia”. F. Preusser and D. Fleitmann, 287,000 CHF. |
| 2006-2010 | Swiss National Science Foundation, “Holocene to Late-Pleistocene paleoclimatic changes in Turkey and the eastern Mediterranean recorded in speleothems”. D. Fleitmann, 1,446,000 CHF. |
| 2003-2005 | Swiss National Science Foundation, “Annual to multi-decadal climate variability in the western Indian Ocean recorded in corals from East Africa”. D. Fleitmann, 130,000 CHF. |
| 2001-2002 | Saudi Geological Society (SGS) proposal, "The speleothem record of climate change from Saudi Arabia". D. Fleitmann and A. Matter, Logistical support for fieldwork. |