K.D. Nelson Lecture – Dr. Marissa Tremblay

The Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences presents the K.D. Nelson Lecture Series featuring  speaker Dr. Marissa Tremblay of Purdue University. Her talk is titled: “From the Alps to Outer Space: Advancing our Understanding Earth System Processes Using Cosmogenic Noble Gases”.

Cosmogenic nuclides, which are produced in the uppermost few meters of the Earth’s crust, are commonly used to quantify the rates and timing of surface processes. In this talk, Dr. Tremblay will describe how they are using the stable cosmogenic noble gases in new ways to understand Earth system processes. She will highlight the development of cosmogenic noble gas paleothermometry, which exploits the open-system behavior of cosmogenic noble gases in some minerals to quantitatively reconstruct temperatures at the surfaces of Earth and other planetary bodies. She will also highlight ongoing work using cosmogenic noble gases to investigate the interactions of magmatism with the Earth’s climate system, both in Earth’s recent geologic past and in deep time.