Events

UTIG Discussion Hour: Heather Shaddox, UC Santa Cruz

WATCH A RECORDING OF THE TALK

Speaker: Heather Shaddox, University of California Santa Cruz

Title: Burst-type repeating earthquakes as a proxy for transient slow slip

LEO Seminar Series: Danny Stockli and Joel Johnson

The purpose of LEO is to create a more inclusive and educated community within the JSG by sharing and listening to each other’s stories. Speakers will interview each other and talk about why they are involved in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts and the heart behind their work. By learning more about why individuals are involved in DEI, we will broaden our understanding of the impacts the JSG is making on students, faculty, staff, and greater society. Taking initiative to get to know each other, ask questions, and Listen to Each Other is a skill that will propel us further to be leaders in the geosciences.

UT Paleontology Seminar: Advait Jukar (Yale University)

The last 200 years of megafaunal extinction research in India.

DeFord Lecture: Yadira Ibarra

Revisiting late Ordovician limestone mottlestones from western Laurentia: origin and significance

About Dr. Yadira Ibarra
Co-evolution of life and the Earth surface environment on geologic and recent timescales; sedimentary geologist and geobiologist; uses field, petrographic, and geochemical approaches to understand different scales of environmental change as recorded in the sedimentary rock record; Biogeochemistry of fluvial and lacustrine carbonate microbialites; Sedimentary rocks from a paleoenvironmental perspective and with a geobiological/astrobiological framework.

DeFord Lecture Series
Since the 1940’s, the DeFord (Technical Sessions) lecture series, initially the official venue for disseminating EPS graduate student research, is a forum for lectures by distinguished visitors and members of our community. This is made possible through a series of endowments.

UTIG Seminar Series: Carey King, UT Energy Institute

Click to watch online.

Speaker: Carey King, Research Scientist, UT Energy Institute

Host: Kehua You

Title: The Economic Superorganism: Beyond the Competing Narratives on Energy, Growth, and Policy

Abstract: Energy drives the economy, economics informs policy, and policy affects social outcomes. Since the oil crises of the 1970s, pundits have debated the validity of this sequence, but most economists and politicians still ignore it. Thus, they delude the public about the underlying influence of energy costs and constraints on economic policies that address such pressing contemporary issues as income inequality, growth, debt, and climate change. To understand why, Carey King will explore the scientific and rhetorical basis of the competing narratives both within and between energy technology and economics.

The competing energy narratives pit “drill, baby, drill!” (fossil fuels) against renewable technologies such as wind and solar. Both claim to provide secure, reliable, clean, and affordable energy to support economic growth with the most benefit to society, but how? To answer this question, we need to understand the competing economic narratives, techno-optimism and techno-realism. Techno-optimism claims that innovation overcomes any physical resource constraints and enables the social outcomes and economic growth we desire. Techno-realism, in contrast, states that no matter what energy technologies we use, feedbacks from physical growth on a finite planet constrain economic growth and create an uneven distribution of social impacts. But we don’t need these narratives, and in fact they distract us, to more accurately understand how the physical basis of the economy is affecting social outcomes.

Hot Science At Home "Will we live on Mars?"

Is Mars the next step in human exploration of the solar system? What would it take to live and work on the red planet, and what will future explorers need to know in order to survive Martian extremes? Join Joe Levy as he talks about the unique aspects of living on Mars.

For additional information, please visit http://www.hotsciencecooltalks.org.

Doctoral Defense: James Biemiller

Please join the Department of Geological Sciences for the final doctoral examination for James Biemiller’s PhD project, “Multi-Timescale Mechanics Of An Active Low-Angle Normal Fault.” The project was supervised by Dr. Luc Lavier and Dr. Laura Wallace, and committee members include Drs. Susan Ellis, Demian M Saffer and Omar Ghattas.

The defense is open to all members of the University community and the public.

https://gradschool.utexas.edu/academics/theses-and-dissertations/doctoral-candidacy/oral-examinations/upcoming

Habitability Seminar: Two Talk Special

A seminar from the Center for Planetary Systems Habitability

Watch the recorded talks (UT Zoom sign-in required)

Seminar 1 Speaker: Judit Gyorgyey Ries, Research Associate, McDonald Observatory, Department of Astronomy, College of Natural Sciences, University of Texas at Austin

Title: When is the next one coming? NEO observations at McDonald Observatory

Seminar 2 Speaker: Caroline Morley, Assistant Professor, Department of Astronomy, UT College of Natural Sciences, University of Texas at Austin

Title: Observing Escaping Atmospheres with the Hobby-Eberly Telescope

https://habitability.utexas.edu/events/

UTIG Discussion Hour: Brandon Shuck, UTIG

UT Paleontology Seminar: William Taylor (University of Colorado)

Understanding the origins of horse domestication through scientific archaeozoology.

DeFord Lecture: Sebnem Duzgun

Geospatial Big Data and AI for Geothermal Exploration

About Dr. Sebnem Duzgun
Research and teaching in mining engineering on mine closure and reclamation, quantitative sustainability assessment for mining projects, risk and safety analysis for coal mines, mine environmental monitoring using remote sensing, reliability-based design and analysis of rock slopes, uncertainty modeling in rock engineering, and interdisciplinary topics including geographic information systems.

DeFord Lecture Series
Since the 1940’s, the DeFord (Technical Sessions) lecture series, initially the official venue for disseminating EPS graduate student research, is a forum for lectures by distinguished visitors and members of our community. This is made possible through a series of endowments.

UTIG Seminar Series: Jud Partin, UTIG

Click to watch online.

Speaker: Jud Partin, Research Scientist, UTIG

Host: Yuko Okumura

Title: Paleo-ENSO Variability Changes since Glacial Times

Abstract: While climate models agree that the earth will warm in the future, they do not agree how the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon will respond to anthropogenic forcing. One method to assess how well models depict ENSO are to force them with geological boundary conditions and compare the results to climate reconstructions. While there are numerous paleoclimate records that can resolve interannual changes, and hence potential ENSO variability from the last 9,000 years, only a handful of paleo-ENSO records exist during the last glacial period, a time of greatly altered mean climate. A series of simulations of deglacial and Holocene climate states performed with the Community Earth System Model, as well as compilations of other climate models run under a subset of similar past climate conditions, suggest that ENSO variability was reduced 6,000 years ago relative to today. Published coral records from the central Pacific agree with models, which were processed using a proxy system model we recently developed, and both datasets show that ENSO variability was slightly reduced 6,000 years ago compared to present, although the data suggest a larger reduction than depicted in the models. The climate models suggest much larger changes in ENSO variability further back in time during the last deglaciation, the Last Glacial Maximum, and during abrupt climate changes when the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) was sluggish. However, little data exists that can resolve ENSO before ~9,000 years ago due to the difficult nature of finding older, pristine samples which are interannually resolved. I will also report on deglacial corals that we collected in Fall 2019 as part of a field trip, where we designed, built, and deployed a prototype drilling system that is portable, cost-efficient, and time-efficient. We deployed to sites in Vanuatu (southwestern tropical Pacific) that have extremely fast uplift and recovered material dated to 10,000 – 15,700 years ago at depths only meters below the surface (< 15 m). We will use these samples to test if ENSO was reduced during glacial times, relative to modern, and if ENSO was more active when AMOC was sluggish, relative to contemporaneous glacial times when AMOC was vigorous, in order to assess how well models simulate paleo-ENSO changes. Preliminary results of corals from the southwestern tropical Pacific suggest that a sluggish AMOC does increase ENSO variability, although longer records are needed to reduce uncertainty in the reconstructions.

Doctoral Defense: Dominik Kardell

Please join the Department of Geological Sciences for the final doctoral examination of Dominik Kardell’s PhD project, “The Structural and Thermal Evolution of Upper Oceanic Crust in the Western South Atlantic: Insights from Seismic Velocities and Hydrothermal Models.” The project was supervised by Dr. Gail Christeson and Dr. Sean Gulick, and committee members include Drs. Robert Reece, Marc A Hesse, Luc L Lavier, and Nicholas W Hayman.

The defense is open to all members of the University community and the public.

https://gradschool.utexas.edu/academics/theses-and-dissertations/doctoral-candidacy/oral-examinations/upcoming

Doctoral Defense: Logan West

Please join the Department of Geological Sciences for the final doctoral examination of Logan West’s PhD project, “Upper Flow Regime Sediment Gravity Flows in Deepwater Environments: Spatio-Temporal Bedform and Flow Evolution in Supercritical Fans.” This PhD was supervised by Dr. Cornel Olariu and Dr. Ron Steel with additional committee members Drs. Mauricio Perillo, Brian K Horton, David Mohrig, and Jacob A Covault.

The defense is open to all members of the University community and the public.

https://gradschool.utexas.edu/academics/theses-and-dissertations/doctoral-candidacy/oral-examinations/upcoming

UT Paleontology Seminar: Oriol Lapiedra

Oriol Lapiedra (Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona)

DeFord Lecture: Deon Knights

The fate of nutrients in coastal freshwater systems: Examples from Wax Lake Delta and the Great Lakes

About Dr. Deon Knights
Nitrogen processing in Arctic deltas and role of channel network orientation on flux to the coast; how deltas control the flux of terrestrially derived nitrate to the Arctic Ocean

DeFord Lecture Series
Since the 1940’s, the DeFord (Technical Sessions) lecture series, initially the official venue for disseminating EPS graduate student research, is a forum for lectures by distinguished visitors and members of our community. This is made possible through a series of endowments.

UTIG Seminar Series: Jorge Lorenzo-Trueba, Montclair State University

Click to watch online.

Speaker: Jorge Lorenzo-Trueba, Montclair State University

Host: John Goff

Title: A moving boundary framework for the evolution of fluvio-deltaic environments across time scales

Abstract: Theories for stratigraphic interpretation generally describe the architecture and dynamics of fluvio-deltaic environments in terms of sediment supply, tectonics and eustacy, neglecting important factors that could also play a significant role, such as the dynamics of the fluvio-deltaic surface or the accumulation of organic matter via plant growth. In this presentation, I will introduce and discuss a numerical modeling framework aimed to better understand the role of these factors in building fluvio-deltaic architecture. A key aspect of this framework is that it can be treated as a classical heat transfer problem with two geomorphic moving boundaries: the shoreline and the alluvial-bedrock transition. The trajectories of these boundaries over time and space define the evolution of the sedimentary prism geometry, and delimit fundamental transitions in surface morphology and sediment transport regime. We find agreement between the numerical solution and laboratory fume experiments under different scenarios of sediment supply, water discharge, and sea-level changes. In particular, both numerical and laboratory results highlight the importance of the dynamics of the fluvio-deltaic surface in delaying the response of the upstream portion under sea-level cycles. Interestingly, such delay can result in a geologically long-lived decrease in the sedimentation rate in the upstream portion of the profile during sea-level rise and an increase during sea-level fall, suggesting that changes in the upper portion of the fluvio-deltaic surface are not necessarily a good indicator of contemporaneous sea-level changes. Overall, these results demonstrate that numerical techniques from heat transfer, in particular enthalpy methods, can be used to better understand the dynamics of fluvial deltas.

UTIG Discussion Hour: Eric Hiatt, UTIG and JSG

Habitability Seminar: Two Talk Special

A seminar from the Center for Planetary Systems Habitability

Watch Frank Mills’ recorded talk (UT Zoom sign-in required)

Seminar 1 Speaker: Dr. Romy Hanna, Research Associate, Department of Geological Sciences, Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin

Title: Asteroid Bennu: Evidence of Water and Heat

Seminar 2 Speaker: Frank Mills, Associate Professor, Australian National University and Visiting Scientist, McDonald Observatory

Title: Atmospheric chemistry on Venus: known toxins, unknown life – what’s next?

https://habitability.utexas.edu/events/