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Marco Bohnhoff is Head of Section 4.2, Geomechanics and Scientific Drilling 'at the GFZ Potsdam German Research Center for Geosciences and Professor of Experimental and Borehole Seismology in a joint appointment with the Free University Berlin. His research has a focus on the scale-invariant analysis of deformation processes involving studies on induced seismicity -the occurrence of earthquakes caused by human activities in the subsurface- and on natural earthquakes along tectonic plate boundaries, such as the North Anatolian Fault in Turkey.
After completing an apprenticeship as an energy systems electronics engineer with Bosch-Siemens-Hausgeräte GmbH, Hamburg, and studying geophysics, Marco Bohnhoff received his doctorate in geophysics from the University of Hamburg in 2000. His PhD thesis is entitled ‘Crustal structure of the Cretan region based on wide-angle seismic profiling'. Subsequently, he held the position of an Assistant Professor at the Department of Geophysics of the Ruhr University Bochum where he started teaching. At that time, he extended his field of research to passive monitoring of natural and induced seismicity. He was Principal Investigator of fluid injection experiments at the superdeep KTB borehole and implemented seismic monitoring networks in the southern Aegean region as part of the Collaborative Research Center SFB 526, Rheology of the Earth '.
Continuing his teaching career in Bochum, where he completed his habilitation in 2006, Marco Bohnhoff moved to the German Research Centre for Geosciences GFZ in Potsdam in 2003. Within the section ‘Deformation and Rheology’ he started a research group on studying earthquake physical process at reservoir and plate-tectonic scale. Between 2005 and 2008 he held the honorary post of Managing Director of the German Geophysical Society (DGG). During this time, he was associate editor of the ISI journal ‘Pure and Applied Geophysics’ for several years.
Between 2007-2009, Marco Bohnhoff was visiting scholar at the Institute of Geophysics at Stanford University (group of Prof. Zoback) in the frame of a Heisenberg fellowship from the German Research Foundation (DFG). At the same time he took part in a management training program in Germany as a member of the Helmholtz Academy, which he successfully completed in 2009 as a certified manager.
From 2010 to 2016, he was head of the Helmholtz-University Young Investigators Group "From Microseismicity to Large Earthquakes: Studies Related to Seismic Hazard Assessment, Carbon Sequestration and Sustainable Resource Management". At that time he was appointed as full professor at the Free University Berlin. Between 2013 and 2015 he was spokesman for the GFZ think tank. Until 2018 he was an Associate Editor of the AGU ‘Journal of Geophysical Research - Solid Earth '. In 2018 he was nominated to be chair of the Executive Committee of the International Scientific Continental Drilling Program ICDP. Since 2019 he is ICDP Executive Director. Bohnhoff is also an elected member of the Leibniz Society of Sciences Berlin.
His current research interests are deciphering earthquake physical processes in geological reservoirs and along tectonic plate boundaries. He is Principal Investigator of the ICDP-driven borehole-based Geophysical Observatory at the North Anatolian Fault (GONAF) in the Istanbul region. He is also a co-PI of a number of similar research projects in Koyna/India and within the STAR observatory in Italy.