Mineral Evolution: A Case Study of a New Natural Law
24/11/2023
The diversity and distribution of Earth's minerals have changed through 4.5 billion years as a consequence of varied physical, chemical, and ultimately biological processes. "Mineral evolution," the study of this rich history of change, has led to a new mineral classification scheme that complements the official system of the International Mineralogical Association. The new "Evolutionary System" of mineralogy attempts to place every mineral species in its historical setting and formational environment. In this way, minerals provide one vivid example of a much more general natural process. Indeed, a pervasive wonder of the natural world is the evolution of varied systems, from stars to minerals to life. These evolving systems seem to be conceptually equivalent in that they display three notable attributes: (1) they form from numerous components that have the potential to adopt combinatorially vast numbers of different configurations; (2) processes exist that generate numerous different configurations; and (3) configurations are preferentially selected based on function. We identify universal concepts of selection—static persistence, dynamic persistence, and novelty generation—that underpin function and drive systems to evolve through the exchange of information between the environment and the system. Accordingly, we propose a new law, the “law of increasing functional information”: The functional information of a system will increase (i.e., the system will evolve) if many different configurations of the system undergo selection for one or more functions. Mineral evolution is a revealing test case of this law.
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Seminario Dr. Yanan Quian
10/11/2023
Impact assessment of environmental stressors on the stability of rock cliffs by acoustic sensing
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Multispectral analysis with XRF and FORS (non-invasive approach) regarding pigments on Pompei
22/09/2023
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Seminario del dottor Yawar Hussain
28/07/2023
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Seminario Transizione Energetica (13.06.2023)
13/06/2023
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Seminario: Sonja Aulbach “Properties of Earth’s mantle and subduction zone processes through time: The message from eclogite xenoliths” 07.06.2023
07/06/2023
Kimberlite-borne xenolithic (“mantle”) eclogite has been studied for many
decades. Given their origin as mid-ocean ridge basalt and gabbro, such samples
can provide insights into the convecting mantle source from which their igneous
protoliths were derived, and into the conditions during their subduction back into
the mantle. Such applications are contingent on a good grasp of each individual
sample’s multistage petrogenesis, comprising differentiation processes in the
ocean floor, seafloor weathering, metamorphic reactions in palaeo-subduction
zones, and overprint during their later extended residence in the lithospheric
mantle. I will discuss what we can learn from eclogite xenoliths about the
temperature and redox evolution of the convecting mantle from which their
protoliths formed, about the supercontinent cycle from their age distribution, and
about redox conditions and interactions with slab-derived liquids during their
subduction in Archaean and Palaeoproterozoic time.
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Seminario: Groundwater – surface water interaction in agricultural landscape: Examples from the Canadian prairies (31.05.2023)
31/05/2023
Seminario per la didattica della Laurea Magistrale in Geologia Applicata ad Ingegneria, Territorio e Rischi. Corsi di Idrogeologia Applicata e Modellistica Idrogeologica. 31 maggio 2023, ore 9.30, Aula 9 meet.google.com/sir-eenv-caj
Groundwater – surface water interaction in agricultural landscape: Examples from the Canadian prairies. Prof. Masaki Hayashi - Department of Geoscience, University of Calgary, Canada. https://ucalgary.ca/people/hayashi
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From the Theory of Ice Ages to IPCC climate projections - International Science Council, Maria Fernanda Sanchez Goni
16/05/2023
Despite improved understanding of global and regional climate change and increased model complexity, the relative contribution of different feedbacks (clouds, ocean circulation, vegetation and its coupling with water and carbon cycles, ice…) continues to vary from model to model, leading to mismatches between climate reconstructions and simulations. Acquiring new Quaternary paleoclimatic records and comparing them with model results is, more than ever, the basic science needed to explain current climate change and improve climate projections.
In this lecture, María Fernanda Sánchez Goñi, Professor of Paleoclimatology, will briefly introduce the discovery of the ice ages, the astronomical theory explaining them, and the unexpected identification of abrupt climate variability (millennial-to-centennial) in the 1980s.
After summarizing the evolution of global climate over the last million year, she will show its impact on different regions of the planet. She will highlight the mismatch between past climates and model simulations and, in particular, the problems linked to modelling regional responses to past global climate changes, for example in monsoon regions.
These issues have strong implications for future climate models, projections of sea level rise and regional impact of climate change. Basic research on the Quaternary is still needed to evaluate model simulations and improve climate projections.
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The ballade of noble gases, paleoclimate and Arsenic…
21/04/2023
Prof. Dr. Rolf Kipfer - Dept. Water Resources & Drinking Water (W+T)
Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science & Technology (Eawag Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH))
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Urban Geo-climate Footprint
13/04/2023
Presentazione del progetto “Urban Geo-Climate Footprint”, nato in seno a all’Urban Geology Expert Group di Euro Geo Surveys (https://eurogeosurveys.org/the-urban-geo-climate-footprint/), la confederazione europea dei servizi geologici.
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