Professor Liane G. Benning
- Position: Professor in Experimental Biogeochemistry
- Areas of expertise: experimental biogeochemistry
- Email: L.G.Benning@leeds.ac.uk
- Phone: +44(0)113 343 5220
- Location: School of Earth and Environment
- Website: Personal homepage | Twitter | Googlescholar | Researchgate | ORCID
Research interests
My research addresses geochemical reaction mechanisms at low to hydrothermal temperatures in inorganic and biologic systems.
My main research focus has moved to the GFZ, where I am leading the Interface Geochemistry Research Group.
In Leeds I still have one ongoing project:
- 2016-2021 Black and Bloom; Leeds PI's Liane G. Benning and Jim McQuaid and PDRA Dr. Jenine McCutheon
Our mission with Black and Bloom is to unravel how dark particles (black) and microbial processes (bloom) darken and accelerate the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet.
- This is a large collaborative grant funded by NERC with co-funding through my German Helmholtz Recruiting Initiative funds at the GFZ. Our aims are to elucidate the causes and mechanisms of why the Greenland Ice Sheet is melting faster. We achieve this through four interrelated workpackages led by each of the consortium partners: W1: pigmentation, and microbial physiology, Bristol, W2: particulates, Leeds, W3: albedo, Sheffield and W4. modelling, Bristol.
- The Leeds work is spearheaded by the PDRA Dr. Jenine McCutheon who focusses on all issues related to particulates in snow, slush, and ice. Our aim is to understand how and to what extent any particles (regardless if mineral dust, anthropogenic black carbon or microbes) contribute to the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet. The Lees based research is complemented through the work of Dr. Stefanie Lutz from the GFZ who is looking at the diversity and function of microbial communities using ‘omics’ techniques.