Category: Past Seminars

Speaker/Affiliation: Pulkit Singh, Stanford University Title: The rise and fall of carbonate skeletons Time: Wednesday, November 12 12:00pm PST Location: EMS B210Abstract: Mineralized skeletons revolutionized marine ecosystems, yet their long-term biomass history has remained poorly constrained. We compiled data from ~7,400 carbonate thin sections spanning 540 million years to reconstruct proportional skeletal biomass produced by skeleton forming organisms across geologic time. The…

Speaker/Affiliation: Debanjan Sengupta, New Mexico State University Title: Pathway to the Formation of Planetesimals in Early Solar Nebula by Turbulent Concentration Time: Friday, November 7 12:00pm PST Location: EMS B210Abstract: The formation of planets was shaped by the formation of the first large planetesimals in the protoplanetary nebula. Moreover, the properties of primitive meteorites derived from these planetesimals provide our only ground…

Speaker: Francis Macdonald, UC Berkeley  Title: Snowball Earth and the Great Unconformity Time: Wednesday, Nov 5 at 12:00pm PST Location: EMS B210 Abstract: The Great Unconformity is an iconic feature across North America marked by the contact between Archean-Proterozoic igneous and metamorphic rocks and overlying Phanerozoic sedimentary rocks. It has been proposed the Great Unconformity was…

Speaker: Voon Hui Lai, Australian National University Title: Advancing Fault and Coastal Monitoring with Fibre Optic Sensing Time: Monday, Oct 20 at 1:00pm PST Location: EMS C332 Abstract: Understanding and monitoring environmental hazards, ranging from catastrophic events like landslides and debris flows to gradual processes such as ground subsidence, requires high-resolution, long-term observational data. However, these processes often…

Speaker: Hadar Cohen Sadon, UC Santa Cruz Title: The Role of the Reactive Iron-to-Sulfate Ratio in Organic Matter Preservation and the δ³⁴S Record of Sedimentary Rocks Time: Wednesday, Oct 22 at 12:00pm PST Location: EMS B210 Abstract: Microbial sulfate reduction (MSR) occurs in oxygen-depleted environments and is one of the most effective processes shaping global sulfur…

Speaker: Ian McBrearty, Stanford University Title: Enhanced Earthquake Detection with Graph Neural Networks Time: Friday, Oct 24 at 12:00pm PST Location: EMS B210 Abstract: Developing accurate earthquake catalogs is an essential goal in seismology, where improved catalogs can enhance our view of active seismogenic processes, fault network distributions, velocity models of the Earth, and earthquake…

Speaker: V.K. Pedersen, Aarhus University, Denmark Title: The influence of Quaternary erosion and deposition on solid Earth deformation, ice sheets, and sea level Time: Wednesday, Oct 29 at 12:00pm PST Location: EMS B210 Abstract: For decades, scientists have studied the interactions between ice sheets, the solid Earth, and sea level. However, the role of surface processes…

Speaker: Margaret Duffy, UC Berkeley Title: Atmospheric Mechanisms of the Pattern Effect Time: Wednesday, Oct 15 at 12:00pm PST Location: EMS B210 Abstract: Climate feedbacks are expected to amplify over time due to the “pattern effect.” The pattern effect describes the influence of the pattern of surface warming on global climate feedbacks. In particular, delayed…

Speaker: Burkhard Militzer, UC Berkeley Title: Phase Separation At High Pressure Explains Why Uranus and Neptune Generate so Unusual Magnetic Fields Time: Friday, Oct 31 at 12:00pm PST Location: EMS B210 Abstract: It was a major surprise when the Voyager 2 spacecraft discovered that Uranus and Neptune have disordered, nondipolar magnetic fields. For many years, it…

Speaker: Franck Marchis, Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute Title: Stargazing and Beyond: A Global Network of Citizen Astronomers Time: Friday, Oct 10 at 12:00pm PST Location: EMS B210 Abstract: Astronomy is a science that inspires everyone, which makes it a great tool for expanding scientific literacy. It also has a uniquely powerful ability to…

Speaker: Scott Winton, UC Santa Cruz Title: Resolving environmental challenges with wetland biogeochemistry Time: Wednesday, Oct 8 at 12:00pm PST Location: EMS B210 Abstract: Wetlands are among the world’s most valuable ecosystems, providing critical nutrient cycling and climate regulation services, but have historically been degraded and mismanaged leading to massive losses in natural capital. In…

Speaker: Qing Ji, Stanford University Title: Turbulent seismoacoustic imprints during a hurricane landfall Time: Wednesday, Oct 1 at 12:00pm PST Location: EMS B210 Abstract: The landfall of Hurricane Isaac along Louisiana’s Gulf Coast in August 2012 was witnessed by the seismoacoustic Transportable Array (TA) stations on its track. We analyze the imprints of Isaac’s landfall…