
Thu 06 Feb 11:30: Cracking in Drying Films
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Alex Routh, IEEF and Chem Eng
- Thursday 06 February 2025, 11:30-12:30
- Venue: Open Plan Area, Institute for Energy and Environmental Flows, Madingley Rise CB3 0EZ.
- Series: Institute for Energy and Environmental Flows (IEEF); organiser: Catherine Pearson.
Wed 12 Feb 14:00: Title to be confirmed
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Jason Phipps Morgan, SUSTech
- Wednesday 12 February 2025, 14:00-15:00
- Venue: Wolfson Lecture Theatre.
- Series: Bullard Laboratories Wednesday Seminars; organiser: Tom Merry.
Tue 04 Mar 12:00: Isotopic composition of samples returned from the Ryugu and Bennu asteroids - insights into the initial composition of the solar protoplanetary disk
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Martin Bizarro, University of Copenhagen
- Tuesday 04 March 2025, 12:00-13:00
- Venue: Department of Earth Sciences, Tilley Lecture Theatre.
- Series: Department of Earth Sciences Seminars (downtown); organiser: Dr Rachael Rhodes.
Mon 03 Feb 18:00: Measuring landscape change in the polar regions with thermochronometry
Understanding how ice sheets change due to ongoing climate change is important and this requires numerical models. Times in Earth’s history that had a similar climate to predictions of the future can be used to test these model predictions. However, as ice sheets wax and wane they erode the landscape. This modifies how much ice the landscape can support. Therefore, it is crucial that we are able to accurately constrain landscape change. Thermochronometry, measures how rocks cool as they are brought to the surface by erosion and can be used to measure landscape change. I will present examples of using thermochronometry to understand landscape change in Greenland and Antarctica.
- Speaker: Dr Matthew Fox - UCL
- Monday 03 February 2025, 18:00-19:00
- Venue: Harker 1 lecture room, Department of Earth Sciences, Downing Site.
- Series: Sedgwick Club talks; organiser: ss2849.
Tue 25 Feb 12:00: Evolution and effects of ecosystem engineers through the Phanerozoic
Ecosystem engineers are organisms whose behaviours change the physical characteristics of their habitats and modulate resource availability, thereby impacting the habitability of their environments for other biota. Given their profound impacts on ecological and evolutionary processes in the modern, palaeobiologists have long hypothesized that the rise of ecosystem engineers throughout Earth history has had increasingly positive impacts on the biosphere, contributing to the rise in marine biodiversity observed over the Phanerozoic. Here, I will highlight the role that animal ecosystem engineers have played in shaping ecological and environmental landscapes since the Ediacaran-Cambrian transition. Focusing on bioturbation, I will present how ecologically-informed biogeochemical modelling is used to show how evolutionary innovations and the environment work together to modulate an ecosystem engineer’s effects. Broadening timescales and ecological groups, I will also present new evidence using ecological meta-analyses that demonstrates that marine ecosystem engineers have had persistent strong positive effects on biodiversity over the entire Phanerozoic. Finally, I will propose a new framework for “Earth systems engineers” (ESE) – ecosystem engineer-type organisms whose activities play major roles in global resource cycles – and highlight major ESE innovations, transitions, and effects.
- Speaker: Alison Cribb, University of Southampton
- Tuesday 25 February 2025, 12:00-13:00
- Venue: Department of Earth Sciences, Tilley Lecture Theatre.
- Series: Department of Earth Sciences Seminars (downtown); organiser: Dr Rachael Rhodes.
Wed 05 Feb 14:00: Dispersed volcanism in East Africa-Arabia: evidence for a single, active plume head
Hot plumes rising from the Earth’s deep mantle are believed to form broad plume heads beneath lithospheric plates, causing uplift, rifting, and volcanism. However, the mechanisms governing plume-lithosphere interactions remain poorly understood. Using seismic waveform tomography, we image interconnected corridors of hot, partially molten rock beneath the East Africa-Arabia region. These corridors, underlying zones of uplift, rifting, and dispersed volcanism, form an active plume head shaped like a three-pointed star. Eruption ages, seismic anisotropy, and plate reconstructions suggest this plume head evolved from south to north, fed by three deep mantle upwellings beneath Kenya, Afar, and the Levant. The resulting large-scale mantle flow, combined with subduction-driven forces, drives the lateral motion of the Anatolian microplate and the dynamic evolution of the Zagros orogen. Our findings demonstrate how plate tectonics and mantle dynamics together govern regional kinematics and surface deformation. Star-shaped plume heads in thin-lithosphere corridors are essential features of plume-continent interactions, shedding light on the dispersed volcanism observed in large igneous provinces, both past and present.
- Speaker: Chiara Civiero, University of Trieste
- Wednesday 05 February 2025, 14:00-15:00
- Venue: Wolfson Lecture Theatre.
- Series: Bullard Laboratories Wednesday Seminars; organiser: Tom Merry.
Wed 19 Mar 17:30: Rise and fall of Bronze Age Mediterranean societies: a new geoarchaeological and chronostratigraphic sequence of Nuragic Sardinia
Around the beginning of the Late Holocene (4,200 years BP) across the western Mediterranean regions, Bronze Age societies developed unique socio-economic and political complexity reflected in the construction of monumental stone architecture. New geoarchaeological and chronostratigraphic research in Sardinia, Italy, exposes for the first time the environmental underpinnings of the expansion and decline of the Nuragic Bronze Age monument-building society. These findings also highlight the role of prehistoric societies in shaping the landscape of the Mediterranean region over the Holocene. Multi-proxy geoarchaeological analyses—including soil micromorphology, XRD mineralogy, magnetic susceptibility, and geochemistry—reveal that the Bronze Age climax soil type of basaltic mesas in Sardinia was a dark Vertisol rich in primary nutrients and montmorillonite clay. These fertile soils sustained grassland ecosystems and played a key role in the distribution of early Middle Bronze Age Nuragic monuments across Sardinia’s basaltic landscapes. However, prolonged and intensified land use, particularly animal herding and agriculture, to support monument construction led to soil erosion and, ultimately, the replacement of deep, nutrient-rich Vertisol cover with a thin, oxidised and vertic Cambisol one. These processes resulted in a significant increase in sediment supply in the catchment east of the mesa, causing a new major phase of alluviation in the valley bottoms during the Late Holocene. These landscape changes triggered a socio-environmental crisis marked by the abandonment of the mesa at the end of the Middle Bronze Age, hence excluding the influence of a climate change in causing the local societal collapse.
- Speaker: Gian Battista Marras (British School at Rome)
- Wednesday 19 March 2025, 17:30-19:00
- Venue: Latimer Room, Clare College.
- Series: Quaternary Discussion Group (QDG); organiser: sr632.
Wed 19 Mar 17:30: Rise and fall of Bronze Age Mediterranean societies: a new geoarchaeological and chronostratigraphic sequence of Nuragic Sardinia
Around the beginning of the Late Holocene (4,200 years BP) across the western Mediterranean regions, Bronze Age societies developed unique socio-economic and political complexity reflected in the construction of monumental stone architecture. New geoarchaeological and chronostratigraphic research in Sardinia, Italy, exposes for the first time the environmental underpinnings of the expansion and decline of the Nuragic Bronze Age monument-building society. These findings also highlight the role of prehistoric societies in shaping the landscape of the Mediterranean region over the Holocene. Multi-proxy geoarchaeological analyses—including soil micromorphology, XRD mineralogy, magnetic susceptibility, and geochemistry—reveal that the Bronze Age climax soil type of basaltic mesas in Sardinia was a dark Vertisol rich in primary nutrients and montmorillonite clay. These fertile soils sustained grassland ecosystems and played a key role in the distribution of early Middle Bronze Age Nuragic monuments across Sardinia’s basaltic landscapes. However, prolonged and intensified land use, particularly animal herding and agriculture, to support monument construction led to soil erosion and, ultimately, the replacement of deep, nutrient-rich Vertisol cover with a thin, oxidised and vertic Cambisol one. These processes resulted in a significant increase in sediment supply in the catchment east of the mesa, causing a new major phase of alluviation in the valley bottoms during the Late Holocene. These landscape changes triggered a socio-environmental crisis marked by the abandonment of the mesa at the end of the Middle Bronze Age, hence excluding the influence of a climate change in causing the local societal collapse.
- Speaker: Gian Battista Marras (British School at Rome)
- Wednesday 19 March 2025, 17:30-19:00
- Venue: Latimer Room, Clare College.
- Series: Quaternary Discussion Group (QDG); organiser: sr632.
Mon 03 Feb 18:00: tbc
tbc – landscape evolution and climate
- Speaker: Dr Matthew Fox - UCL
- Monday 03 February 2025, 18:00-19:00
- Venue: Harker 1 lecture room, Department of Earth Sciences, Downing Site.
- Series: Sedgwick Club talks; organiser: Susannah Scott.
Mon 27 Jan 18:00: The magic of log ratios: A different look at geochemistry
The compositions of Earth materials are usually described in terms of specific components, normalised to a whole. This means that individual components must always be positive, and their sum cannot exceed 100%. While these properties are obvious, their wider implications are often misunderstood. In this talk, I will first show how most geochemical datasets are not nearly as amenable to standard statistical analysis and interpretation as they may initially appear. I will then show how the magic of log-ratios can help us to address these difficulties. Finally, I will discuss the physico-chemical meaning of log-ratios and give some examples of how they can be used to better describe, understand, and model various geochemical fractionation processes. This will inevitably raise questions regarding the standard, classical approaches still used for these tasks.
- Speaker: Dr Max Frenzel - Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf
- Monday 27 January 2025, 18:00-19:00
- Venue: Harker 1 lecture room, Department of Earth Sciences, Downing Site.
- Series: Sedgwick Club talks; organiser: ss2849.
Mon 17 Mar 18:00: tbc
tbc – metamorphic petrology
- Speaker: Dr Barbara Kunz - The Open University
- Monday 17 March 2025, 18:00-19:00
- Venue: Harker 1 lecture room, Department of Earth Sciences, Downing Site.
- Series: Sedgwick Club talks; organiser: Susannah Scott.
Mon 10 Mar 18:00: tbc
tbc – geochemistry and technology metals
- Speaker: Dr Eva Marquis - University of Exeter
- Monday 10 March 2025, 18:00-19:00
- Venue: Harker 1 lecture room, Department of Earth Sciences, Downing Site.
- Series: Sedgwick Club talks; organiser: ss2849.
Mon 03 Mar 18:00: tbc
tbc – glaciers and sedimentology
- Speaker: Dr Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand
- Monday 03 March 2025, 18:00-19:00
- Venue: Harker 1 lecture room, Department of Earth Sciences, Downing Site.
- Series: Sedgwick Club talks; organiser: ss2849.
Mon 17 Feb 18:00: 20 years of being the librarian
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Sarah Humbert (University of Cambridge)
- Monday 17 February 2025, 18:00-19:00
- Venue: Harker 1 lecture room, Department of Earth Sciences, Downing Site.
- Series: Sedgwick Club talks; organiser: ss2849.
Mon 10 Feb 18:00: tbc
tbc – paleobotany
- Speaker: Dr Tim Astrop - Brymbo Fossil Forest
- Monday 10 February 2025, 18:00-19:00
- Venue: Harker 1 lecture room, Department of Earth Sciences, Downing Site.
- Series: Sedgwick Club talks; organiser: ss2849.
Wed 12 Feb 17:30: The impact of climate-ice sheet interactions on abrupt climate changes in the long-term past and their importance for the future climate
The simulation of the last deglaciation (about 20.000 years before present to present) represents a hitherto unsolved challenge for comprehensive state-of-the-art climate models. During my presentation, I will introduce our novel coupled atmosphere-ocean-vegetation-ice sheet-solid earth model that is used to simulate the transient climate. An ensemble of transient model simulations successfully captures the main features of the last deglaciation, as depicted by proxy estimates. In addition, our model simulates a series of abrupt climate changes, which can be attributed to different drivers that will be discussed throughout the presentation. I will furthermore show, how the model can be applied for simulations of the long-term future. The future simulations show, that parts of the Antarctic ice sheet become unstable even under low-emission scenarios, with significant implications for the modelled climate response. Sensitivity experiments additionally show that, the Greenland ice sheet may exhibit multiple steady-states under pre-industrial climate conditions. This has significant implications for a potential regrowth, once disintegrated entirely.
- Speaker: Marie-Luise Kapsch (Max Planck Institute for Meteorology)
- Wednesday 12 February 2025, 17:30-19:00
- Venue: Latimer Room, Clare College.
- Series: Quaternary Discussion Group (QDG); organiser: wb350.
Wed 19 Feb 17:30: Reconstructing levels of volcanism in the late Pleistocene
Volcanism is known to act as a driver of change to the Earth system on a range of scales. Degassing of greenhouse gases may act to drive global warming, whilst the weathering of fresh volcanic material may enhance the silicate weathering feedback and aid cooling of Earth’s climate. At the same time, the intensity of volcanism responds to other aspects of the Earth system. For example, low sea levels and low ice volumes may both act to increase levels of volcanic activity through the release of pressure on magma chambers. These interactions in turn may control the level of impact volcanism has as a driver of change. To fully understand the interaction between volcanic activity and climate, however, reliable records of changing volcanic intensity through time are required. Such records have been, to date, either regional or of low resolution. Here, I will discuss two approaches to this problem, firstly through the compilation of volcanic material occurrence in deep sea sediment cores. Secondly, I will present the application of inversion of atmospheric carbon dioxide records as an approach to reconstructing periods of imbalance and likely volcanic activity in the carbon cycle. Both approaches highlight a shift in the late Pleistocene at around 400 ka, whereby more volcanic activity is reconstructed, and the activity becomes cyclical in nature. This may be linked to Mid Brunhes Transition, a period of strengthening in amplitude of glacial-interglacial cycles, and indicates how Earth system changes may impact volcanic intensity.
- Speaker: Jack Longman (Northumbria University)
- Wednesday 19 February 2025, 17:30-19:00
- Venue: Latimer Room, Clare College.
- Series: Quaternary Discussion Group (QDG); organiser: wb350.
Tue 11 Feb 12:00: Environmental controls on mineral-associated permafrost organic carbon fate
The Arctic is warming nearly four times faster than the rest of Earth’s surface (Rantanen et al., 2022). Consequently, permafrost areal extent is projected to decrease (24 ± 16% by 2100, RCP2 .6, Chadburn et al., 2017) and Arctic precipitation is projected to increase (50 – 60 % by 2100, RCP2 .6, Bitanja and Andry, 2017). Permafrost contains ~ two times as much carbon as Earth’s atmosphere (Hugelius et al., 2014). Upon thaw, permafrost organic carbon is a) stored in soils and sediments, b) transferred from soils to aquatic bodies, c) broken down to inorganic carbon in soils and aquatic bodies. A fraction of this inorganic carbon is released as greenhouse gases to the atmosphere which could amplify Arctic warming (the permafrost carbon feedback, Schuur et al., 2015). A portion of permafrost organic carbon is associated with minerals (e.g., Garcia-Palacios et al., 2023) which contribute to modulating if carbon is stored in the land or released into the atmosphere (e.g., Patzner et al., 2020). Our work seeks to understand the environmental controls on how, where and when minerals contribute to carbon release from these vulnerable landscapes. To do this we couple in-field measurements (e.g., precipitation and water table depth) with geochemical measurements (e.g., isotopes, microscopy, spectroscopy. I will present findings from large and small Arctic catchments and ongoing ideas for future research.
- Speaker: Catherine Hirst, University of Durham
- Tuesday 11 February 2025, 12:00-13:00
- Venue: Department of Earth Sciences, Tilley Lecture Theatre.
- Series: Department of Earth Sciences Seminars (downtown); organiser: Dr Rachael Rhodes.
Thu 20 Feb 11:30: TBC
Abstract not available
- Speaker: James Morris, IEEF
- Thursday 20 February 2025, 11:30-12:30
- Venue: Open Plan Area, Institute for Energy and Environmental Flows, Madingley Rise CB3 0EZ.
- Series: Institute for Energy and Environmental Flows (IEEF); organiser: Catherine Pearson.
Thu 27 Feb 11:30: TBC
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Professor Matthew Davidson, Bath Institute of Sustainability and Climate Change
- Thursday 27 February 2025, 11:30-12:30
- Venue: Open Plan Area, Institute for Energy and Environmental Flows, Madingley Rise CB3 0EZ.
- Series: Institute for Energy and Environmental Flows (IEEF); organiser: Catherine Pearson.