BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Kinneyia\, a fossil hydrodynamic instability  - Lucas Goering\, Ma
 x Planck Institute for Dynamics\, Germany
DTSTART:20150423T110000Z
DTEND:20150423T120000Z
UID:TALK58308@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Catherine Pearson
DESCRIPTION:Microbial mats from over half the history of the Earth have be
 en fossilised with intriguing ripple patterns on them\, a few millimetres 
 wide.  We show that these features can be caused by a Kelvin-Helmholz-like
  instability\, of the flow of water over a viscoelastic fluid like the pro
 tein-rich slimy matrix of a microbial colony.  By a combination of analogu
 e experiments\, and linear stability analysis\, we show that the condition
 s for the formation of such small-scale ripples should be incredibly gener
 ic\, and also develop a scaling analysis for their wavelength selection.  
 This allows us to use the structure of Kinneyia as an indicator of the gro
 wth conditions of algal mats in the deep precambrian. \n
LOCATION:Open Plan Area\, BP Institute\, Madingley Rise CB3 0EZ
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR