Studying carbon cycle variations in ancient sedimentary sequences is a 1-week course starting with a one day field excursion in northern Switzerland to describe and sample sedimentary facies in the field, followed-up in the lab by learning and applying different analytical techniques to identify changes in environmental conditions and the carbon cycle.

Climate history and paleoclimatology explores how the major features of the earth's climate system have varied in the past, and the driving forces and feedbacks for these changes. The major topics include the earth's CO2 concentration and mean temperature, the size and stability of ice sheets and sea level, the amount and distribution of precipitation, and the ocean heat transport.

The course focuses on the most important systems of radioactive and stable isotopes used in geochemistry and geology. Applications of isotope geochemistry for solving fundamental geological problems are discussed on the basis of case studies.

Changes in rainfall may constitute one of the strongest impacts of anthropogenic climate changes in many regions. In this reading course, we examine the paleoclimate evidence for past changes in flood frequency, drought incidence, fire frequency, and changes in precipitation systems.

The course will focus on biological amd chemical aspects of sedimentation in marine environments. Marine sedimentation will be traced from coast to deep-sea. The use of stable isotopes palaeoceanography will be discussed. Neritic, hemipelagic and pelagic sediments will be used as proxies for environmental change during times of major perturbations of climate and oceanography.