Conferencia: “Pelagic sediments – archives for ocean and climate history”
Impartida por: Prof. Helmut Jürg Weissert (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology – ETH Zurich)
Fecha: 19 de marzo de 2015
Lugar: Salón de actos. Edificio Geológicas. Facultad de Ciencias. Campus San Francisco
Hora: 12:30 h
Abstract:
The earliest investigations of modern deep-sea sediments date back into the late 19th century. Sediments were sampled from all the major oceans during the Challenger expedition (1872-1876). One of the results of these early investigations was the identification of the Calcite Compensation Depth, the CCD. In the presentation, the CCD will be used as a guide through ocean and climate history of the last 120 million years. Extraordinary changes of the CCD at the Eocene-Oligocene transition, at the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum and during Oceanic Anoxic Event 1 in the Aptian provide insight into major changes of the climate-ocean system and, hence, of the biosphere. The Aptian case study offers the opportunity to learn about feedbacks between plate tectonics, physical, chemical and biological oceanography at times of perturbations of the global carbon cycle resulting in greenhouse pulses.
CV:
Helmut Weissert teaches at the Department of Earth Sciences. In 1993 he was given the title of Professor at ETH. His teaching and research fields are sedimentology and palaeoclimatology.
Helmut Weissert studied natural sciences at the ETH Zurich. In 1979 he completed his PhD at ETH in the field of paleoceanography. Helmut Weissert spent the following year as a post-doctoral student at the University of Southern California (Los Angeles). There, he worked with the marine geology group on quaternary climate reconstructions. From 1981 to 1982 he was a research associate at Basel University. In fall 1982 he joined the Department of Earth Sciences at ETH Zurich as senior assistant until 1988. In 1988 he was appointed a lecturer «Privatdozent» in the field of sedimentary geology and isotope geochemistry.
Helmut Weissert`s research interests are in the field of paleoceanography, palaeoclimatology and the evolution of the biosphere. He is the director of several PhD projects focussing on the interaction of the past climate with the biosphere. Helmut Weissert is president of the Swiss Geological Commission. He is a voting member of the Subcommission on Cretaceous Stratigraphy. He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal «Paleoceanography», the «Journal of the Geological Society» and of «Geologica Carpathica». He is member of the Ocean Drilling Program Science planning and Sterring Committee ESSEP.