Past event
Virtual SEES Seminar --- Dr Guillaume Avice, University of Paris Title: Studying the evolution of the Earth's atmosphere with noble gases: recent advances in paleo-atmospheric studies
This seminar will be a virtual talk and live telecasted in Teams.
Open to all staff and students, please join us in Bute room A15 or on MS Teams using the meeting link.
Title: Studying the evolution of the Earth's atmosphere with noble gases: recent advances in paleo-atmospheric studies
Abstract: Planetary atmospheres are fundamental reservoirs controlling the habitability of planets.
The chemical and isotopic compositions of atmospheric constituents also hold clues on the
geological evolution of the entire planetary body. Today, the terrestrial atmosphere contains
about 80% dinitrogen and 20% dioxygen. Yet, there is no scientific consensus on how and
why these two molecules emerged and persisted in the Earth's atmosphere. Outgassing of
volatile elements from the Earth's interior and the interactions between the atmosphere and
the continental crust also play a major role in controlling the bio-availability of nutrients, the
composition of the atmosphere, and thus the climate. In this presentation I will describe
how the elemental and isotopic composition of noble gases allowed to identify and date Ga-
old atmospheric signals in ancient rocks. Noble gas measurements allow to put important
constraints on diverse mechanisms such as hydrogen escape on the Early Earth (at least
partly responsible for the emergence of O2 ), the nitrogen cycle during the Archean or the
geodynamics of ancient Earth and its influence on the atmosphere. I will also describe new
identified geological targets which could host paleo-atmospheric signatures.