Professor Bob Spicer
Centre for Earth, Planetary, Space and Astronomical Research,
The Open University,
Milton Keynes,
MK7 6AA, UK
Throughout the Late Cretaceous (99.6 to 65 million years ago) abundant fossil remains distributed around margins of the present day Arctic Ocean point to a ‘lost world’ where dinosaurs roamed through lush forests growing where today only sea ice and frozen polar deserts exist. The combination of prolonged winter darkness and relative warmth is absent from today’s world.
Despite almost half the year being dark these forests sequestered vast amounts of carbon from the Late Cretaceous high CO2 atmosphere and gave rise to huge coal deposits.
This is the story of how these extinct polar ecosystems have been investigated. It is a story of how ancient temperatures, rainfall and even cloudiness can be ‘decoded’ from leaf fossils. It is also about how plant communities functioned and changed through space and time, and how they might have to be re-engineered in a future where controlling greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere will be a global priority.
| Date | Wednesday, 27 February 2013 |
|---|---|
| Time | 5:30pm - 6:30pm |
| Audience | Public |
| Event Category | Sciences |
| Event Type |
Lecture |
| Campus | Dunedin |
| Location | St David St lecture theatre |
| Cost | Free |
| Contact Name | Jenny Leyden |
| Contact Phone | 03 479 7534 |
| Contact Email | jenny.leyden@otago.ac.nz |
