exoCean Laboratory
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exoceanlab.bsky.social
exoCean Laboratory
@exoceanlab.bsky.social
Laboratory of experimental oceanography based at CEREGE 🦚, Aix-en-Provence 🇫🇷. We culture, measure, and dissolve carbonates!
📨 exocean@cerege.fr
🌡️🌊🫧🐚🪸🔬
@juliemeilland.bsky.social, @sulpis.bsky.social, @chalkyoceans.bsky.social
#exocean advent calendar day 24!
Today we thought it was a good fit to show an image/talk about “conception”…
One of the thing we (try to) do best at ExoCean is planktonic foraminifera reproduction. Here two immaculate mummies… 😏

We would like to wish you all a beautiful Christmas Eve!
December 24, 2025 at 1:34 PM
Reposted by exoCean Laboratory
#exoCeanadvent Day 23: at exoCean we also look at some old questions: in the late 1800s, during the HMS Challenger expedition, they discovered that you can have a constant rain of shells from above, and still end up with a seafloor that looks like the carbonate budget never existed. Why? Pressure. 🌊
December 23, 2025 at 6:21 PM
#exoCeanadvent Day 23: at exoCean we also look at some old questions: in the late 1800s, during the HMS Challenger expedition, they discovered that you can have a constant rain of shells from above, and still end up with a seafloor that looks like the carbonate budget never existed. Why? Pressure. 🌊
December 23, 2025 at 6:21 PM
#exoCeanadvent Day 22: Winding down for the holidays often means one thing... more mass spectrometry time is available! With our friends in @cerege.bsky.social's #ENVITOP facility, we're making use! Thanks to their equipment we're working on measuring elemental compositions down to the nano-gramme!
December 22, 2025 at 4:28 PM
#exocean advent calendar Day 21! The strongest link between all of us is our love for the ocean. Leaving Marseille with a magnificent sunrise reminds us each time we go out how lucky we are to do what we love for a living!
We already have our ship time for the first 6 months of 2026 - exciting!
December 21, 2025 at 7:13 PM
#exoCeanadvent Day 20: it's wishing time... Whether you believe in Santa (the French singer 🎤), FC, or as I recently heard, Professor Xmas... We can all hope for some things in the holiday season... At @exoceanlab.bsky.social we would like (in no particular order):
December 20, 2025 at 5:35 PM
Reposted by exoCean Laboratory
Essential reading for those interested in going carbon negative 👀. See what @sulpis.bsky.social does for a living and how it connects to @exoceanlab.bsky.social here!
December 18, 2025 at 1:52 PM
#exoCeanadvent Day 19: Friday edition: today’s post is about the peacocks at CEREGE, because it’s Friday and our brains are in weekend mode. They wander around like they own the campus, scream for no reason, and block paths with absolute confidence. Honestly, goals. 🦚
December 19, 2025 at 6:00 PM
#exoCeanadvent Day 18: looking for a good read waiting for Santa? 🌊 Try marine carbon removal: @sulpis.bsky.social co-chaired the working group behind the @emarineboard.bsky.social MRV brief, because “trust me bro” isn’t a monitoring protocol. Emissions cuts first; then *maybe* carbon removal.
December 18, 2025 at 11:34 AM
Reposted by exoCean Laboratory
Net accident you say? Ooops, this net came back looking like it had been mauled by a shark, and I think... Maybe it had. A good, but expensive(!) sample. Sorry @tdegaridel.bsky.social!
December 17, 2025 at 7:51 PM
#exoCeanadvent Day 17: Net accident, happy outcome. Ex-lab member Laura caught this phronima (monster in a barrel) “by mistake”, so we adopted it - alive - in a lab aquarium. One haul turned into days of behaviour notes.
December 17, 2025 at 4:39 PM
#exoCeanadvent Day 16: We're getting closer to the holidays, but we don't stop yet. @erc.europa.eu postdoc @jysuarezibarra.bsky.social was out today presenting his work @maxplanck.de in Mainz. @soniachaabane.bsky.social is also visiting to chat with colleagues.
December 16, 2025 at 5:22 PM
#exoCeanadvent Day 15: Some plankton are tiny [citation needed?], and for those we need ways to measure tiny (this is a theme you'll hear us talking about a lot). Sometimes just holding samples in place can be hard.... enter the #Cryostage! ❄️
December 15, 2025 at 6:11 PM
#exoCeanadvent Day 14 Footprint reduction: we do lab-based ocean science because we genuinely love it, but also because lab experiments can replace lots of field trips. More control, more insight, and in part, fewer emissions. Bonus: dissolving old sediment cores neutralizes a bit of CO2. 😇
December 14, 2025 at 6:05 PM
#exoCeanadvent Day 13: Time Machine. Travel back in time with us 6 million years. Part of the reason for our work @exoceanlab.bsky.social is to better understand the past through observing the modern, but sometimes you just need some ancient mud..@chalkyoceans.bsky.social recently went to get some!
December 13, 2025 at 4:53 PM
Reposted by exoCean Laboratory
Are you following @exoceanlab.bsky.social?
If not, then you are missing their #AdventCalendar, which describes one thing about this lab—team members, research, and equipment—everyday this month until 24th!
@climatecerege.bsky.social
🧪 🌊
December 12, 2025 at 4:15 PM
#exoCeanadvent Day 12: End-of-year celebration - raclette edition. On the agenda for this team meeting: cheese, cheese, cheese, goals for next year: even more cheese. We’ve officially reached our melting point. 🧀
December 12, 2025 at 2:25 PM
#exoCeanadvent Day 11: Science makes you do strange things. Meet @astridhylen.bsky.social, a postdoc working with carbonate dissolution in coastal sediments. She recently found herself in the middle of a salt marsh, stirring one of the ponds with a (clean) toilet brush taped to a curtain rod.
December 11, 2025 at 6:27 PM
#exoCeanadvent Day 10: As winter creeps into Provence we remember warmer days from our fieldwork in Bermuda. We stayed with the lovely folk at @biosstation.bsky.social, like @blancobercial.bsky.social who helped us to look for different foraminifera to catch, than our usual Mediterranean stuff.
December 10, 2025 at 5:50 PM
#exoCeanadvent Day 9: Meet Maxime (again). At @exoceanlab.bsky.social and @climatecerege.bsky.social Maxime has been conducting several experiments focusing on the culture of marine organisms. One project involved culturing foraminifera in the presence of olivine (Mg,Fe)2SiO4, an igneous mineral.
December 9, 2025 at 4:25 PM
#exoCeanadvent Day 8: Meet Katoo Declerk's Erasmus+ work. During her internship Katoo is investigating recently dead foraminifera (handily available in our lab!) Forams typically sink to the ocean floor soon after death, but partial or total dissolution can occur before getting there.
December 8, 2025 at 3:24 PM
#exocean advent calendar Day 7!
We are lucky to be based in a pine forest, in Southern France, which means loads of possible walks to discuss science in a wonderful environment. We also like to run together - as we did Friday to finish the week!
December 7, 2025 at 8:06 AM
#exoCeanadvent Day 6: To study the deepest ocean trenches, we’re building reactors that make our lab behave like the deep ocean. Funded by @erc.europa.eu #Deep-C, they will hold cold seawater at ~1000 bar (10km water) so we* watch pressure shape chemistry and biology 🔬🌊

*mostly @sulpis.bsky.social
December 6, 2025 at 3:23 PM
We're so good at this Science stuff. Day "5"!
#exoCeanadvent Day 4: Why did we set up this lab? Part I. What is going to happen to climate as CO2 levels go up? @chalkyoceans.bsky.social and @erc.europa.eu project #ForCry look at CO2 in the past to better understand climate sensitivity. Part of this is making better past CO2 reconstructions.
December 5, 2025 at 6:18 PM
#exoCeanadvent Day 4: Why did we set up this lab? Part I. What is going to happen to climate as CO2 levels go up? @chalkyoceans.bsky.social and @erc.europa.eu project #ForCry look at CO2 in the past to better understand climate sensitivity. Part of this is making better past CO2 reconstructions.
December 5, 2025 at 6:10 PM