Revelle lecture announced
The National Academies' Ocean Studies Board would like to announce that Dr. Paul G. Falkowski, Board of Governors' Professor at Rutgers University, will be the speaker for the tenth annual Roger Revelle Commemorative Lecture, scheduled for Tuesday, March 17, 2009 at 5:30pm. It will be held in the Baird Auditorium in the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History (10th Street and Constitution Avenue). Dr. Falkowski's talk is entitled:
The ocean has been a feature of Earth's surface for at least 4 of the past 4.5 billion years, and has provided the primary environment for the evolution of microbes that drive the biogeochemical cycles on Earth. Over this long period of time, the ocean has witnessed extreme changes, ranging from complete coverage with ice to extensive periods when there was no ice at all; periods of extraordinary extinction of animal life, to periods of dramatic evolutionary radiation of animals. Throughout all of Earth's history, the ocean has served as the primary backbone of life on the planet; and the core metabolic processes have been successfully transferred across vast stretches of geological time. Humans, in contrast, evolved only about 200,000 years ago, and in that short period of time have come to successfully outcompete and plunder many of Earth's living resources. Over the past 100 years, in particular, we have increasingly altered the trophic structure of the ocean as well as its physical circulation and chemical properties. While human impacts will surely alter ecosystem functions the core metabolism of the ocean will go on. Rather, ironically, humans are the fragile species that will lose capabilities of using the ocean as a source of food and novel molecules. Our future is intimately tied to that of the ocean. We have to begin viewing the oceans as a key component of the Earth system; one that we cannot live without.
This event is free and open to the public. For planning purposes, please complete this brief registration form. You are encouraged to post the event flyer or to forward it to your colleagues. For more information, contact Pamela Lewis.
Please visit Roger Revelle Lecture Series for information on Roger Revelle and on previous lectures.
The Once and Future Ocean
The ocean has been a feature of Earth's surface for at least 4 of the past 4.5 billion years, and has provided the primary environment for the evolution of microbes that drive the biogeochemical cycles on Earth. Over this long period of time, the ocean has witnessed extreme changes, ranging from complete coverage with ice to extensive periods when there was no ice at all; periods of extraordinary extinction of animal life, to periods of dramatic evolutionary radiation of animals. Throughout all of Earth's history, the ocean has served as the primary backbone of life on the planet; and the core metabolic processes have been successfully transferred across vast stretches of geological time. Humans, in contrast, evolved only about 200,000 years ago, and in that short period of time have come to successfully outcompete and plunder many of Earth's living resources. Over the past 100 years, in particular, we have increasingly altered the trophic structure of the ocean as well as its physical circulation and chemical properties. While human impacts will surely alter ecosystem functions the core metabolism of the ocean will go on. Rather, ironically, humans are the fragile species that will lose capabilities of using the ocean as a source of food and novel molecules. Our future is intimately tied to that of the ocean. We have to begin viewing the oceans as a key component of the Earth system; one that we cannot live without.
This event is free and open to the public. For planning purposes, please complete this brief registration form. You are encouraged to post the event flyer or to forward it to your colleagues. For more information, contact Pamela Lewis.
Please visit Roger Revelle Lecture Series for information on Roger Revelle and on previous lectures.
Labels: dc, meetings, oceans, smithsonian
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home