It’s all relative: the ups, downs, tilting and rebounds of ancient sea level
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Speaker: Professor Peter Burgess, Earth, Ocean and Ecological Sciences, University of Liverpool.
Sea level is the elevation of the sea surface across the planet and changing sea level is one, but not the only, factor that controls how shorelines change and move through time. As we pass into a time when sea level is likely to change noticeably and perhaps dramatically on human timescales, understanding the geological history of changing sea level has never been more important. In this talk, we will discuss how we define and measure different aspects of sea level, and how sea level has changed through time. We will cover global changes produced by icecaps growing and shrinking, the ever-shifting balance between deposition, erosion and sea level changes, and the tectonic bouncing up and down of shorelines and indeed entire continents as viscous mantle rock flows beneath them. Slower than a roller coaster, but in the end much more significant and perhaps a lot more scary, we need to understand the ups and downs of sea level because they may well turn out to determine the ups and downs of societies and perhaps even the human species.
The 2018-2019 monthly Tuesday evening lectures in the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences will be held in the Wallace Lecture Theatre (0.13), Main Building, Cardiff University, Park Place, CF10 3AT. Lectures begin at 18.30. Booking is not needed. Should you require the QandA sessions to be in Welsh, please email edwardsd2@cardiff.ac.uk at least two weeks before the event.
Current concerns on the effects of temperature increases on sea levels today have drawn attention to the recognition of past changes, the consideration of the processes involved and the consequences of such changes, all of which have resulted in predictions of impacts in the future. The lecture series will cover some of these issues.
Main Building
Park Place
Cardiff
CF10 3AT