David De Vleeschouwer

SSP Stratigraphy, Sedimentology and Palaeontology

The 2016 Division Outstanding Young Scientist Award is awarded to David De Vleeschouwer for his contribution to Devonian climate based on a new astrochronology combined with Bayesian statistics.

David de Vleeschouwer, now a post-doctoral researcher at MARUM, Universität Bremen, Germany, finished his PhD thesis in 2014 at the Department of Geology of the Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Belgium. For his thesis on Devonian climate, he combined data from field observations, high-resolution geochemistry, time series analyses and climate modelling. He integrated results from Devonian radiometric dating with astrochronology combined with Bayesian statistics. His pioneering work resulted in the reduction of time-scale uncertainty and, hence, in a very precise stratigraphy of the Devonian and in a substantial improvement of the Devonian time scale.
De Vleeschouwer combined his results from astrochronology with sedimentological and palaeoceanographic investigations and with climate modelling, aiming at a better understanding of Devonian climate. By pushing his quantitative approach to deep-time stratigraphy to its limits he gained fascinating insight into Late Devonian greenhouse climate. In his young career he has gained deep understanding in a broad range of disciplines of Earth sciences. His outstanding scientific skills are well reflected in a number of excellent publications.
He also received several awards for outstanding presentations at national and international conferences and workshops. He is engaged in public outreach activities and, with his understanding of climates of the past, he actively participates in public debates on future climate change.