Lecture: Carbon Cycle and the Habitability of the Earth

When: 3:30 p.m., Monday, October 17, 2016

Where: Meeting Room No.8, Conference Building, Weijin Road Campus

Lecturer: Li Gaojun, professor and doctoral supervisor from School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Nanjing University.

About the Lecture: Why is the earth habitable for life since at least 3.8 billion years ago while luminosity of the sun have increased by 25% The interaction between silicate weathering and carbon cycle may have played a central role because liquid water is vital for weathering reaction. This talk will provide evidences from small basaltic catchments and deep time weathering tracers to prove the negative feedbacks between silicate weathering and the concentration of carbon dioxide in atmosphere. I will also show how weathering feedbacks have saved the Earth from Cenozoic cooling and snow ball glaciation. Finally, I will propose a hypothesis regarding why there are only two snowball earth periods.

Organizer: Institute of Surface-Earth System Science of Tianjin University