This seminar explores “mineral dust–climate” relationships in monsoon-influenced regions from the present back to the last million years. It investigates how changes in atmospheric circulation and the hydrological cycle have influenced dust production, transport, and deposition under different climatic conditions, and how variations in the dust record can, in turn, be used to reconstruct past dynamics of atmospheric circulation and the hydrological cycle.

The approach relies on multi-proxy characterization of the mineral dust deposits preserved in marine and lacustrine sedimentary archives. Sedimentological, mineralogical, and geochemical tracers are used to identify dust provenance, reconstruct transport pathways, and track shifts in monsoon intensity and regional aridity.

Particular attention is given to the link between dust supply and primary productivity, including the role of dust as a micronutrient source for marine and continental ecosystems. These reconstructions provide new insights into feedbacks between dust, climate dynamics, and ecosystem productivity across Quaternary timescales. 

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Charlotte Skonieczny, Associate Professor at Université Paris-Saclay, France, is a paleoclimatologist whose research focuses on reconstructing past changes in atmospheric circulation and the hydrological cycle in monsoon-influenced regions. Her research is based on a multi-proxy characterization of the inorganic fraction of sediments deposited by atmospheric or fluvial routes in marine and lacustrine sedimentary archives of these regions.