01.01.2017: Marco Bohnhoff is new Head of GFZ section Geomechanics and Rheology, starting on 1 January. He succeeds Georg Dresen, who was Head of section since 1992. Since 2010, Bohnhoff is Professor for Experimental- and Borehole Seismology in a joint appointment with the Free University of Berlin, and head of a GFZ working group on the same topic.

His research especially addresses the analysis of deformation processes over a broad range. A focus is on induced seismicity – earthquakes caused by anthropogenic activity – and on natural earthquakes along plate-bounding transform fault zones of the Earth’s crust, like the North-Anatolian Fault Zone. Central research topic of the section Geomechanics and Rheology is to decipher brittle and ductile deformation processes from Earth’ surface down to the upper mantle from laboratory up to plate boundary-scale.

After an education as an energy electronics engineer and a graduation in Geophysics in the year 1997, Bohnhoff completed his PhD at the University of Hamburg, Germany, in 2000. In the following he was appointed as Assistant Professor at the Ruhr-University of Bochum where he completed his habilitation in 2006. In 2003 he joined GFZ as a senior scientist. From 2007 to 2009 he was Visiting Scholar in the department of Geophysics at Stanford University, California/USA in the frame of a Heisenberg fellowship. Bohnhoff is a certified manager, was head of a Helmholtz Young Investigators Group from 2010 to 2016, as well as head of the GFZ Future Commission from 2013 to 2015. (ak)