This Group has focused his research on Earth´s climate change over the last thousand years based on the study of deep sea sediments and their paleoclimate and paleoceanographic records. The Group has long experience on the analysis of calcareous (planktonic foraminifers and coccolithphorids) and siliceous (diatoms) plankton microfossils preserved in the sediments that provide excellent records of past climates. We also analyse oxygen and carbon stable isotopes measured in microfossils, as well as other biogeochemical proxies to reconstruct past oceanic environments. Over the last decade we carried out various paleoceanographic projects on the Western Mediterranean and North Atlantic, as well as on the Pacific, Arctic and Antarctic oceans.

Our studies have contributed to gain a better understanding of abrupt climate changes in the Mediterranean and the interactions between the Northern and middle latitudes of the northern Hemisphere, as recorded by Greenland ice-core records.

Researchers of our Group have collaborated with International Scientific Programs, such as IODP (Integrated Ocean Drilling Program) and IMAGES (International Marine Past Global Change Study), participating in quite a few oceanographic expeditions in the Mediterranean Sea, Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic and Antarctic oceans.

Besides, members of the Group developed some projects aiming to understand the influence of astronomical cycles on climate change in the Iberian Peninsula and the Western Mediterranean over the last 7 millions years and have contributed to the elaboration of the Astronomical Time Scale.

Researchers from the Natural Science Museum of Madrid, University of Vigo, Complutense University of Madrid and University of Alcala have joined investigators from the University of Salamanca under the umbrella of GRACCIE to study estuaries, marshes and ancient beaches in coastal areas from the Iberian Peninsula and the Canary Islands in order to reconstruct the evolution of coastal dynamics in response to natural climate change. In particular previous studies in estuaries, such as the estuaries of Doñana (Western Andalusia), Vigo (Galicia) or Alcudia (Balearic Islands) allowed to reconstruct with great detail the evolution of coastal morphology over the last 10,000 thousand years as the sea level was rising.