On Friday, 3 April 2020 at 2:15 p.m. in UT Physicum lecture hall B103 (W. Ostwaldi 1, Tartu)
Oliver Shorttle (University of Cambridge)
Tracing volatiles from protoplanetary disks through to planets
Elements such as carbon, sulfur, and oxygen, have key roles throughout the planet formation process and during subsequent planetary evolution. They are major reservoirs of mass in protoplanetary disks, affecting gas and grain dynamics; they have active roles in planetary differentiation, forming major components of planetary cores, affecting the budget of highly siderophile elements, and enabling the formation of continental crust; and they are bioessential, being necessary components of all known life, and lying at the heart of atmosphere/hydrosphere cycles that sustain a habitable planet. In this talk we combine astrophysical observations of stellar accretion processes with geological observations of volcanic eruption products to trace sulfur and carbon from planet formation into the deep Earth.
Oliver Shorttle holds a joint position between the Earth Sciences and Astronomy departments at the University of Cambridge as an Associate Professor. His background is in Earth Sciences, investigating the fundamental chemical cycles that emerge on planets connecting their deep interiors to their atmospheres and oceans. His research on exoplanets focuses on how geology may manifest in exoplanet atmospheres, how planets emerge from their formation as habitable worlds, and what the initial conditions are for geochemistry to turn into biochemistry.
The Physicum seminars are meant for a broad auditorium of physicists and materials scientists, as well as for interested people from other natural and exact sciences (including bacheleor level students) and aim at introducing what is important and new in a certain field, or where a specific reasearch direction has reached today.
Everybody is welcome to attend.