[Aqualist] Adelaide Earth Science seminar-- Fri 21st Sept--Allison Karp

[John Tibby]

Dear All,

For anyone in Adelaide on Fri we have a great seminar on Friday:  "Grassland fire ecology has roots in the Late Miocene"

More details below.
__________________________________________
Associate Professor John Tibby

Department of Geography, Environment and Population
School of Social Sciences
Faculty of Arts

and

Director, Sprigg Geobiology Centre

University of Adelaide
Phone: +61 (0)8 8313-5146<tel:%2B61%20%280%298%208313-5146>
EMAIL: john.tibby at adelaide.edu.au<mailto:john.tibby at adelaide.edu.au>
SKYPE: johntibby



Office address (see below for sample delivery address):
Room G39, Napier Building
North Terrace
Adelaide, South Australia, 5005

Web address:
http://researchers.adelaide.edu.au/profile/john.tibby
Google Scholar profile:
http://tinyurl.com/Google-Scholar-Tibby
Twitter: john_tibby
Field work photos (link)<https://www.flickr.com/photos/25765066@N06/>
Adelaide University Geography Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/groups/AdelaideUniGeography (for past and present staff, students and associates)



Address for sending samples:
Send to:
John Tibby
c/o Snezana Ilic
Room G19
Napier Building
University of Adelaide
North Terrace
Adelaide, South Australia, 5005


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From: Alan Collins
Sent: Monday, 17 September 2018 11:13 AM
Subject: UAdelaide Earth Science seminars-- Fri 21st Sept--Allison Karp

Hi all
There is another Sprigg Centre seminar this Friday, on the history of fire. It sounds great.

Grassland fire ecology has roots in the Late Miocene
Allison Karp
Pennsylvania State University

3-4pm Friday 21th Sept, Mawson Lecture Theatre, Mawson Building

What the talk is about...
Fire is crucial to maintaining modern subtropical grasslands, yet our understanding of the origins and evolution of this association on geologic timescales is limited, due in part to few co-eval records of both grass and fire proxies in the geologic record. The ambiguity of past ecosystem-fire dynamics impedes our ability to predict how these critical ecosystems may respond to the current changing climate. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are a complex suite of molecules that can derive both from the burning of terrestrial vegetation, as well as thermally mature fossil organic substrates. Distinguishing burn signatures with these compounds will make it possible to link paleo-fire and vegetation change in the past. I'll present my recent progress developing a new biomarker approach that uses these compounds to constrain the relationship between fire and grassland ecology in both terrestrial and marine contexts during the Late Miocene C4 grassland expansion on the Indian Subcontinent. Results suggest that modern feedbacks between fire, seasonality and landscape opening were first initiated in the Late Miocene. I hope further use of this novel approach will address how regional differences in fire dynamics contributed to the globally asynchronous Mio-Pliocene grassland expansion, as well as other terrestrial ecosystem questions in Earth History.

A bit about Allison...
Allison Karp is a molecular paleontologist and a current Ph.D. candidate in the Geosciences Department at Pennsylvannia State University in the United States. Allison received her B.A. in Biology and Environmental Earth Science from Washington University in St. Louis in the U.S, with additional field studies in paleoecology and ecology at the University of Queensland and the University of Hawai'i. At Penn State, Allison is a NSF Graduate Research Fellow working with Dr. Kate Freeman studying isotope biogeochemistry. Her research focuses on improving isotopic and molecular tools to constrain abiotic-biotic feedback processes in deep time, in particular, fire-vegetation interactions.

Cheers
Alan

******************************
Professor Alan Collins

[Presentation2]

Centre for Tectonics Resources and Exploration
http://www.adelaide.edu.au/trax/

Department of Earth Sciences,
University of Adelaide
SA5005
Australia
+61 (0)8 8313 3174
Twitter ID| @geoAlanC

A link to a podcast of my professorial inaugural lecture<http://blogs.adelaide.edu.au/inaugural-lecture/2014/05/29/the-past-planet-puzzle/>
And an article I recently wrote for The Conversation<https://theconversation.com/a-map-that-fills-a-500-million-year-gap-in-earths-history-79838>