Page path:

Dr. Susan Mau

Archived Page

This web page has not been updated since the former colleague left MARUM.

Re­search In­terests

My sci­entific in­terests fo­cus on the in­ter­face between phys­ical and chem­ical ocean­o­graphy, mi­cro­bial eco­logy, and mar­ine geo­logy. Work to date con­cen­trated on the mar­ine meth­ane cycle com­bin­ing these sci­entific areas. In par­tic­u­lar my re­search in­cludes: in­vest­ig­a­tions of phys­ical ocean­o­graphy con­trolling meth­ane dis­tri­bu­tion and mi­cro­bial ox­id­a­tion, tem­poral con­straints of meth­ane ac­cu­mu­la­tion and meth­ane loss pro­cesses, quan­ti­fic­a­tion of meth­ane loss pro­cesses in the wa­ter column (in­volving trans­port-re­ac­tion mod­el­ling), and labor­at­ory and field stud­ies to eval­u­ate the tech­niques to de­term­ine mi­cro­bial turnover rates of the gas. One of my primary sci­entific goals is to un­der­stand the gen­er­a­tion and re­moval pro­cesses of meth­ane in the wa­ter column and sur­face sed­i­ments us­ing an in­teg­rated ap­proach, and to ap­ply the know­ledge to un­der­stand changes of at­mo­spheric meth­ane con­tent in Earth’s his­tory.

Cur­ri­cu­lum Vi­tae

Research and Work Experience

05/​2013 – pre­sent Post­doc­to­ral Fel­low, Uni­ver­si­ty Bre­men
Re­se­arch Group: Prof. Dr. G. Bohr­mann
DFG Pro­ject 'Li­mi­ta­ti­ons of ma­ri­ne me­tha­ne oxi­da­ti­on'
09/​2012 – 04/​2013 Post­doc­to­ral Fel­low, Al­fred We­ge­ner In­sti­tut, Bre­mer­ha­ven
Re­se­arch Group: Prof. Dr. M. Schlü­ter
In­ves­ti­ga­ti­on of me­tha­ne oxi­da­ti­on in the Arc­tic
01/​2011 – 08/​2012 Post­doc­to­ral Fel­low, MPI for Ma­ri­ne Mi­cro­bio­lo­gy, Bre­men
Re­se­arch Group: Dr. D. de Beer
In­ves­ti­ga­ted ef­fect of oce­an aci­di­fi­ca­ti­on on bent­hic mi­cro­or­ga­nism using a 1D re­ac­tion-trans­port mo­del for cal­ci­fy­ing pho­to­tro­phic bio­films
05/​2009 – 12/​2010 Ma­rie Cu­rie Fel­low, MPI for Ma­ri­ne Mi­cro­bio­lo­gy, Bre­men
Re­se­arch Group: Prof. Dr. A. Boe­ti­us
Esti­ma­ted dis­sol­ved me­tha­ne bud­get in down-cur­rent plu­me from Coal Oil Point (COP) seep field off­shore San­ta Bar­ba­ra
Par­ti­ci­pa­ted on SEE­P’s 2009 crui­se to in­ves­ti­ga­te fur­ther the ex­ten­si­on of COP plu­me
Or­ga­ni­ze stu­dies for com­pa­ri­son with COP-data
05/​2006 – 04/​2009 Ma­rie Cu­rie Fel­low, Uni­ver­si­ty of Ca­li­for­nia, San­ta Bar­ba­ra, USA
Re­se­arch Group: Prof. Dr. D. L. Va­len­ti­ne
Syn­the­si­zed high pu­ri­ty 14C-me­tha­ne in­vol­ving growth of Me­tha­no­bac­te­ri­um ther­mo­tro­phi­cum strain ΔH
Set up tech­ni­ques to mea­su­re me­tha­ne oxi­da­ti­on ra­tes using 3H la­be­led me­tha­ne and 14C la­be­led me­tha­ne
Con­duc­ted 3H-me­tha­ne and 14C-me­tha­ne rate mea­su­re­ments in the field
Uti­li­zed GC­CIRMS for C-iso­to­pic cha­rac­te­riza­t­i­on
Cor­re­la­ted CH4 con­cen­tra­ti­ons and oxi­da­ti­on rate mea­su­re­ments with ocea­no­gra­phic pat­terns
Esti­ma­ted sea-air gas trans­fer of CH4, C2H6, C3H8 over COP-plu­me area
01/​2005 – 04/​2005
12/​2005 – 04/​2006		 Post­doc­to­ral Fel­low, IFM-GEO­MAR, Kiel
Post-pro­ces­sed Acoustic Dopp­ler Cur­rent Pro­fi­ler (ADCP) data
11/​2001 – 12/​2004 Ph.D. Stu­dent, IFM-GEO­MAR, Kiel
Ad­vi­sor: Prof. Dr. E. Su­ess, Prof. Dr. G. Reh­der
Dis­ser­ta­ti­on: “Me­tha­ne out­put from cold seep struc­tu­res along the Cen­tral Ame­ri­can con­ti­nen­tal mar­gin”
Par­ti­ci­pa­ted on crui­ses off­shore Ni­ca­ra­gua and Cos­ta Rica
Ac­qui­red know­ledge of dif­fe­rent geo­che­mi­cal ana­ly­ti­cal tech­ni­ques and de­ploy­ed cur­rent me­ters/​ADCP
Cal­cu­la­ted the amount of CH4 di­sch­ar­ging from dif­fe­rent seep sites Iden­ti­fied fate of CH4 in the wa­ter co­lumn ba­sed on C-iso­to­pic ana­ly­ses
10/​2000 – 10/​2001 Gra­dua­te Stu­dent (Di­plom), TU Berg­aka­de­mie Frei­berg
Ad­vi­sor: Prof. Dr. P. Her­zig, Dr. T. Kuhn
The­sis: “Mi­ne­ra­lo­gy, geo­che­mis­try and sul­fur-iso­to­pic cha­rac­te­ris­tics of sul­fi­de and sul­fa­te pre­ci­pi­ta­tes of the sub­ma­ri­ne Grim­sey hydro­ther­mal field, Is­land”
In­ves­ti­ga­ted the sour­ce and ge­ne­sis of hydro­ther­mal pre­ci­pi­ta­tes from the Grim­sey hydro­ther­mal field using dif­fe­rent geo­che­mi­cal and iso­to­pic ana­ly­ses
In­ves­ti­ga­ted hydro­ther­mal al­te­ra­ti­on of se­di­ments
02/​1998 – 02/​1999 1 year Stu­dy Ab­road Stu­dent (cour­se­work as for B.S.)
Flin­ders Uni­ver­si­ty of South Aus­tra­lia, Ade­lai­de, Aus­tra­lia
Field: Geo­che­mis­try, Geo­phy­sics, Ocea­no­gra­phy, Eng­lish

Research grants

DFG pro­ject incl. own po­si­ti­on MA 3961/​2-1
Ma­rie Cu­rie Out­go­ing In­ter­na­tio­nal Fel­lowship MOIF-CT-2006-021604

List of Research Cruises

03/​2013 – 04/​1013 Po­lar­stern crui­se ANT XXIX to South Sandw­hich Is­lands, R/​V Po­lar­stern
08/​2010 Heincke crui­se 333 to Spitz­ber­gen, R/​V Heincke
09/​2009 SEE­P’s 2009 crui­se ‘Mi­cro­bi­al Geo­che­mis­try of Na­tu­ral Ma­ri­ne Gas Seep­s’ off­shore Ca­li­for­nia, R/​V At­lan­tis
05/​2006 – 06/​2008 nu­merous crui­ses with boats main­tai­ned by Ma­ri­ne Ope­ra­ti­ons at Uni­ver­si­ty of Ca­li­for­nia, San­ta Ba­ra­bra
03/​2007 ‘Plu­mes and Bloom­s’, R/​V She­ar­wa­ter
09/​2003 SO173/​3 crui­se ‘Sub­duc­tion II’, R/​V Son­ne
08/​2002 – 09/​2002 M54/​2+3 crui­se ‘Fluids and Sub­duc­tion Cos­ta Rica 2002, R/​V Me­te­or
03/​2002 – 04/​2002 SO163 crui­se ‘Sub­duc­tion I’, R/​V Son­ne

Pu­bli­ca­ti­ons

  • Mau S., J. Blees, E. Helmke, H. Niemann, and E. Damm (2013) Different methanotrophic potentials in stratified polar fjord waters (Storfjorden, Spitsbergen) identified by using a combination of methane oxidation techniques, Biogeosciences Discuss., 10, 6461-6491
  • Mau S., G. Rehder, H. Sahling, T. Schleicher and P. Linke (2012) Seepage of methane at Jaco Scar, a slide caused by seamount subduction offshore Costa Rica, International Journal of Earth Sciences, DOI 10.1007/s00531-012-0822-z
  • Heintz M., S. Mau and D. L. Valentine (2012) Oceanographic Control on Methanotrophic Potential in the Satna Monica Basin, Southern CA Borderland, Limnology and Oceanography, Volume 57(2), 420-432. doi:10.4319/lo.2012.57.2.0420
  • Mau S., M. B. Heintz, D. L. Valentine (2012), Quantification of CH4 loss and transport in dissolved plumes of the Santa Barbara Channel, California, Continental Shelf Research. Volume 32, 110-120, doi:10.1016/j.csr.2011.10.016
  • Mau S., M. B. Heintz, F. S. Kinnaman, D. L. Valentine (2010) Compositional variability and air-sea flux of ethane and propane in the plume of a large, marine seep field near Coal Oil Point, CA., Geo-Marine Letters, Volume 30, Numbers 3-4, 367-378, doi: 10.1007/s00367-010-0185-z
  • Mau S., D. L. Valentine, J. F. Clark, J. Reed, R. Camilli, L. Washburn (2007b), Dissolved methane distributions and air-sea flux in the plume of a massive seep field, Coal Oil Point, California, Geophys. Res. Lett., Volume 34, L22603, doi:10.1029/2007GL031344
  • Mau, S., G. Rehder, I. G. Arroyo, J. Gossler, and E. Suess (2007a), Indications of a link between seismotectonics and CH4 release from seeps off Costa Rica, Geochem. Geophys. Geosyst., 8, Q04003, doi:10.1029/2006GC001326
  • Schmidt, M., C. Hensen, T. Mörz, C. Müller, I. Grevemeyer, K. Wallmann, S. Mau, N. Kaul (2005), Methane hydrate accumulation in “Mound 11” mud volcano, Costa Rica forearc, Marine Geology, Volume 216, Issues 1-2, Pages 83-100