Monday, February 09, 2015, 12:00PM - 1:00PM
Speaker
Julio Sepúlveda
INSTAAR & Geological Sciences
Location:
ARC room 620
Full title
Holding your breath: How biomarkers link modern, past and future ocean de-oxygenation
Abstract
Our understanding of how marine microbial processes and biogeochemical cycles will respond to future increases in atmospheric CO2 and global temperature, as well as ocean acidification and deoxygenation, is very limited. This is largely due to a lack of proxies that can register ocean biogeochemical processes in sedimentary archives during past transitions to warmer climates. Microbial cell membrane lipids (biomarkers) offer unique advantages over other proxies as tracers for microbial metabolism, redox conditions, and ocean temperature in sedimentary records, due to their ubiquity and preservation potential in sedimentary archives. In this seminar I will discuss (a) recent developments in the application of microbial biomarkers as proxies for sea surface temperature and oxygen depletion, and (b) their application in sedimentary records from northern Chile to trace changes in ocean biogeochemistry across glacial-interglacial transitions.
Audience
Free and open to the public.