Forams! Time, evolution, climate

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• Professor Paul Pearson - UCL
• Monday 14 October 2024, 18:00-19:00
• Harker 1 lecture room, Department of Earth Sciences, Downing Site.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact ss2849.

Foraminifera are a fantastically useful group of protist microfossils with an unrivalled fossil record. Benthic species are present through the entire Phanerozoic, but they evolved into planktonic habitats in the Jurassic, diversifying in the mid-Cretaceous. Now foram-rich sediments are accumulating over about a quarter of the solid surface of the planet. In this talk Professor Pearson gives a personal perspective on a variety of foram-related topics. He explains how they are used to date and correlate sediment, how they can be tracked continuously through the strata, revealing patterns and processes of evolution, and how their calcite shells embed climate proxies, recording a great deal of information about Earth’s history including temperature and carbon dioxide levels. He ends with an account of the almost magical powers of agglutinated forams.

This talk is part of the Sedgwick Club talks series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• Department of Earth Sciences seminars
• Harker 1 lecture room, Department of Earth Sciences, Downing Site
• Sedgwick Club talks

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