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Seminar Nov. 7: Geologic connections with carbon dioxide concentrations

The Department of Geosciences presents Gabe Bowen from the University of Utah for an in-person seminar, “Toward an omni-proxy reconstruction of Phanerozoic CO2” at 3 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 7 in the Micron Center for Materials Research, Room 106. The geosciences office is also offering free coffee throughout the day.

Bowen writes in an abstract, “Atmospheric CO2 links the carbon cycle, climate, and biogeochemical and biotic systems. As such, knowing how CO2 concentrations have varied over Earth’s history is fundamental to understanding and learning from the geologic record. In the absence of direct evidence, numerous paleo-CO2 proxies have been developed and used to reconstruct past CO2 levels. Although this work has improved our understanding of this important quantity, it has also highlighted discrepancies between proxy methods, inconsistencies in the application of individual methods, and substantial uncertainty in our reconstructions for many time intervals. These proxy methods are all highly uncertain but also quite diverse, and presumably the best reconstructions can be obtained by leveraging the strengths of many methods.”

Learn more about Bowen’s seminar on the Geosciences website.