For personal contact please visit our institute's webpage or the seismics / seismology working group webpage.
Professor and Research fellows
Serge A. Shapiro
received his Diploma (1982) from the Moscow State University and Ph.D. (1987) from the Moscow Research Institute VNIIGeosystem, both in Geophysics.
From 1982 to 1992, he worked for the VNIIGeosystem as a research scientist.
In 1991-1997 he was a research scientist at the Geophysical Institute of Karlsruhe University, Germany. During this time he received an Alexander von Humboldt scholarship and a Heisenberg professorship. From 1997 till 1999, he was a professor of Applied Geophysics at the School of Geology of the Polytechnic Institute in Nancy, France, where he cooperated with the GOCAD consortium.
Since 1997 till 2006 he was one of Principal Investigators of the WIT university consortium.
Since February 1999, he has been a full professor of Geophysics at the Freie Universität Berlin.
Since 2004 he has been the Research Director of the PHASE university consortium. His interests include the physics of seismicity, exploration seismology, rock physics, and forward and inverse scattering problems.
In 2002 he received the Best Paper in Geophysics Award of the SEG.
In 2004 he was elected a Fellow of The Institute of Physics (UK).
Memberships: SEG, EAGE, AGU, and German Geophysical Society (DGG).
Beatrice Cailleau
Has studied Mechanics in 1992-1996 and received a diploma in Geophysics from the University of Grenoble, France, in 1997. She worked one year in computer programming in the company Cap Gemini Paris, and then joined the Graduate School of Geomar - Kiel University to specialise in finite and boundary element modelling applied to Geosciences. In 2003, she obtained a PhD in Geophysics focusing on the numerical modelling of volcanotectonics interaction. As a research scientist, she spent 2 years at the Geodesy Lab of Miami, USA, and two years at the Geodynamics Group of GFZ Potsdam to work on plate margin deformation of Central and South America.
Since 2008, she is at Free University of Berlin investigating the role of fluid and stress coupling in earthquake triggering by means of finite element modelling.
Carsten Dinske
received his diploma in Geophysics from the University of Potsdam in 2004. Before he became a research associate at Freie Universität in January 2005 he was a research assistance at GFZ Potsdam supporting the KTB seismological monitoring group during a long-term fluid injection experiment. In 2011, he finished his PhD studies and received a doctoral degree. His work mainly focuses on improved understanding of injection-induced seismicity related phenomena. He is a member of AGU, EAGE and SEG.
Oliver S. Krüger
joined the group in 2000.
In his diploma thesis (2002) he analyzed the accuracy of Erik Saenger’s finite difference modeling code.
2002 - 2009 his studies focused on numerical investigations of rock physical properties, including: the applicability of effective medium theories, reflection coefficients of fractured media and wave propagation in gas hydrates.
2009 - 2010 he changed the direction of his research to diffusivity estimations of hydro-carbon reservoirs.
2010 he started working on magnitude estimation for induced seismicity from reservoirs stimulation.
Jörn Kummerow
received his diploma in Geophysics from Free University, Berlin, in 1998. In his diploma thesis, he worked on travel time tomography of two seismic profiles near Calama, Northern Chile.
Between 1998 and 2003, he was member of the TRANSALP Group at the GFZ Potsdam and studied the crustal and upper mantle seismic structure of the Eastern Alps. He finished his PhD in 2003. Since 2003, he has been working in the KTB seismic monitoring team focusing on fluid-induced microseismicity.
In August 2005 he joined the microseismicity group at the Free University, Berlin and continues his research in seismic source location, multiplet analysis as well as source parameter determination. He is member of EAGE, EGU and SSA.
Sybille I. Mayr
studied Physics at the University of Stuttgart from 1988 - 1993 and worked 1992/93 on her diploma thesis at the Institute of Geophysics (Stuttgart). The subject of the theses was the “Investigation of the elastic behaviour of porous sediments at static stress”. In 1994/95 she worked at the Institute of Geotechnical Engineering, Stuttgart. From 1995 to 2008 she was Member of the Department of Applied Geophysics, Technical University Berlin (TUB). Till 2000 she was Assistant Lecturer and working as Scientific Employee on the ultrasonic behaviour of sandstones under hydrostatic pressure. Afterwards she was employed on an “Elektro Kinetic Sounding” Project till 2002. In 2002 she received her doctorate in Natural Sciences by the TUB. From 2002 - 2008 she worked on two Petrophysics Projects (Chicxulub and Chesapeake) at the TUB. In August 2008 she joined the microseismicity group at the Freie Universität Berlin. She is again working in the field of rock physics and now concentrating on pore pressure induced microseismicity. Since May 2011 she is Gast Dozentin for ’Experimental Rock Physics’ at the ’Institut für Geologische Wissenschaften/FU Berlin’ Membership: SEG, Geological Society of America (GSA), German Geophysical Society (DGG).
Erik H. Saenger
received his diploma in Physics in March 1998 and his Ph.D. in November 2000 from the University of Karlsruhe.
Since January 2001 he has been a research associate at the Freie Universität Berlin. During this time, he focused on wave propagation in fractured and multi phase materials. Erik has been the head of the Numerical Rock Physics Group. Currently, he is working at the ETH Zurich. He is member of the DGG, DPG, SEG, and EAGE.
Pablo Salazar
received his diploma as a Geologist from University Catolica del Norte (Antofagasta, Chile) in 1998. In 2005 he received his MSc (in Geophysics) with specialty in Seismology from University of Chile (Santiago, Chile).
Since 1998 he works as lecturer in the Geology Department of University Catolica del Norte. Recently, he joined the Freie Universität Berlin as a Ph.D. student.
In 2011 he received his doctorate in Natural Sciences by the FU Berlin. His research interests focus on seismology, microseismicity and seismic imaging.
Cedric Schmelzbach
Cedric Schmelzbach received his Diploma in Geography with emphasis on Applied Geophysics from the University of Zurich and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich, Switzerland) in 2002 with a thesis on ultra-shallow reflection seismic profiling to study unconsolidated sediments. For his Ph.D., he moved to Uppsala, Sweden, and worked on high-resolution seismicreflection and seismic-refraction imaging of the crystalline crust, focusing on, for example, pre-stack migration of crooked-line data, 3-D seismic imaging, and diffraction analysis, with applications to regional-scale geological studies, host rock characterization in ore districts, and fracture mapping (graduating in 2007).
In 2006 and 2007, he spent extended research visits to the Institute of Geophysics, ETH Zurich, Switzerland, working on 3-D fracture imaging using seismic-reflection data, and to Rice University, Houston (USA), working on P- and Swave first-arrival traveltime tomography. From 2008 to 2011, he worked as a PostDoc on signal processing and georadar (ground-penetrating radar, GPR) applications in hydrogeophysics at Potsdam University (Germany).
Until December 2011, he was a senior PostDoc at FU Berlin, focusing on seismic imaging employing active and passive (microseismicity) sources. In 2006, he received an SEG NSG Section Student Travel Grant and an SEG Student
Travel Grant. He is member of the AGU, SEG, and EAGE.
Peter Wigger
received his Diploma in Geophysics 1977 from the Freie Universität Berlin (FUB). Then he worked in the exploration company PRAKLA-SEISMOS. He returned to the FUB and was engaged in a number of projects exploring the continental lithosphere by controlled source seismology. 1983 he finished his Ph.D. at the FUB (thesis about the Apennin mountain chain and the geothermal anomaly in Tuscany, Italy) and since that time his research was focussed to the South American Andes, using wide and steep angle seismics as well as seismological methods. Since 1985 he also acted as the research manager for two large interdisciplinary geoscientific programs based at the FUB: Research Group "Mobility of active continental margins" (until 1990) and Collaborative Research Center (SFB 267) "Deformation Processes in the Andes" (until 2005).
PhD Students
Stine Gutjahr
started as a student assistant in our imaging group and received her diploma in 2009. For her diploma theses she analysed active seismic data from the San Andreas fault at Parkfield related to the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth. As a PhD student she reprocesses old industry seismic reflection data in order to image deep structures of the San Andreas fault in the Cholame region.
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Lars Houpt
studied physics at the Technische Universität Berlin and
graduated in 2008. The topic of his diploma-thesis which
he wrote at the Freie Universität Berlin was “Magnetotelluric
measurements in Northern Germany”. Since
September 2008 he is working on time-lapse active seismic
monitoring in the CO2 sequestration project CLEAN.
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Nicolas Hummel
studied Geophysics at the University of Karlsruhe. In 2008 he received his diploma from the Faculty of Physics. From 2004 to 2006 he was research assistant at the Black Forest Observatory testing different data acquisition systems and actively participated in several seismological experiments. Between 2006 and 2008 he joined the seismic imaging group followed by the rock physics group where he finally wrote his thesis about microseismicity and pore pressure diffusion in porous media. Since October 2008 he is research associate at Freie Universität Berlin and a member of the Phase university consortium. His PhD topic is about physics of induced microseismicity especially for hydraulic fracturing. His focus is on transport processes responsible for seismicity triggering and the determination of hydraulic transport properties. He is a member of EAGE and SEG.
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Cornelius Langenbruch
joined our research group in summer 2005 as a teaching assistant for the department of Geophysics. In 2006 he also started to support the work of the microseismicity group analyzing the temporal evolution of fluid-induced seismicity. In July 2008 he received his Diploma in Geophysics from the Freie Universität Berlin. Since August 2008 he is a Ph.D. student at the Freie Universität Berlin. His current research focuses on the physics, numerical and geo-mechanical modeling and the statistics of fluid injection induced seismicity. In 2010 he received the award for young scientists of the GtV-BV Geothermie. He is a member of EAGE, EGU, AGU and SEG.
Antonia Oelke
studied physics before she joined our group in 2009. For her diploma thesis, she closely worked with Stefan Buske on the reprocessing of seismic profiles in New Zealand. Since 2010, she is working as a Ph.D. student with the focus on the modelling of the reflection coefficient of a hydraulic fracture, and she became a student of the GEO.SIM graduate school in 2011. She is a member of EAGE.
Anton Reshetnikov
studied physics and computer sciences at Department of Computational Physics, Faculty of Physics, Saint Petersburg State University, Russia. He received his MSc diploma in 2006. From 2001 to 2007 he worked for the GEOVERS ltd., Moscow, Russia as a software engineer, senior geophysicist and project manager, where he has obtained the experience of software designing and developing for seismic data processing, solutions of forward and inverse problems of geophysics, large scale calculations. Then he joined the microseismicity group at Free University, Berlin in September 2007. Now he is working on microseismicity location and imaging problems. His research interests include seismic data processing, numerical methods in imaging and modeling of seismic wave propagation for heterogeneous media.
Karsten Stürmer
joined our group as a student assistant in numerical rock physics. In September 2009 he finished his master in this topic and became a full member of our research staff. Now he studies waveform similarities in a close collaboration with Joern Kummerow. Furthermore he is an active member of the SEG student section Student Geophysical Society of Berlin.
Changpeng Yu
Changpeng Yu studied geophysics at China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) since 2004 and received his diploma in 2008. In 2007, he joined the Center for Geophysics Prospecting in CUG as a research assistant and then became a formal master student the next year. In his former group, his work covered reflection seismic data processing, velocity model building, attenuation analysis and full-waveform inversion. After receiving his MSc diploma at CUG, he joined our group in Sep 2011 with support from China Scholarship Council. Now his work mainly focuses on anisotropic phenomena revealed by microseismic observations.
MSc Students
Wasja Bloch
started working as a student research assistent for the Geophysics Department in early 2011. Before that, he gained his Bachelor’s degree in Geosciences at the University of Göttingen in 2009 and started his GeophysicsMaster’s career in early 2010. As of early 2012, he works on microseismic event location in the northern Chilean forearc region.
Jonas Folesky
received his BSc of Science in Physics from TU-Berlin in2011. Since then he is a student Member of our Group.Currently he is working with Jörn Kummerow on backprojection imaging and modeling using a finite differenceprogram by Erik Saenger.
Alexander Häckel
is a student member and teaching assistant. In his Bachelor
Thesis he applied the seismicity based reservoir characterization
on the Cooper Basin microseismic data set.
Aurelian Röser
joined our group as a student assistant in 2009. In 2011,
he received his bachelor’s degree, for which he focused
his research on common patterns in frequency-magnitude
distributions of natural seismicity along convergent plate
boundaries. Moreover, he works as a teaching fellow
for the Applied Geophysics and The Earth I modules as
well as the student advisor for students majoring in geophysics.
He is Chairman of the Student Geoscientific Society
Berlin & Potsdam and a member of SEG, EAGE,
AAPG and SEPM.
Tetsuro Taranczewski
is a student member in the seismic working group since
2008. He is currently working on Bohemia swarm earthquakes.
He is also a teaching assistant.
Sebastian Ziem
joined the group in 2010. He reveiced his diploma in
physical engineering from the university of applied sciences
in Brandenburg in 2006. From 2007 to 2008 he
worked as a field engineer in the seismology group of the
GITEWS project at the GFZ Potsdam. After one year as
develepoment engineer in the semiconductor industry he
started a postgraduate MSc study in geophysics at the FU
Berlin. Now he is assisting Anton Reshetnikov in his work
on microseismicity location and imaging problems.