University Calendar
Permian Dust and Its Relevance to Modern Climate Change
Gerilyn Soreghan, University of Oklahoma, presents this week's seminar. Watch the seminar on Zoom.
About Dr. Soreghan
Dr. Lynn Soreghan is Director and Eberly Family Chair, and David Boren Professor in Geosciences, University of Oklahoma. Lynn uses sediments to interpret Earth’s “deep-time” climate, with interests in ancient glaciations, atmospheric dust, and weathering. She earned her B.S. (Geology) at UCLA, and her PhD (Geosciences) at the University of Arizona.
About the Seminar
Dust/loess is well known as both an archive of climate and agent of climate change for Earth’s recent record. But dust deposits are increasingly recognized in Earth’s deep-time record, especially from the Permian. Thick dust deposits occur in the U.S., and elsewhere (e.g. France) along the paleoequator. Dust deposition pulsed on a glacial-interglacial timescale, and was sourced from regions that included the equatorial Central Pangaean Mountains. Notably, the voluminous atmospheric dust stimulated productivity in the marine and terrestrial biosphere, thus affecting carbon cycling and source-rock development. Recent recognition of extraordinarily thick dust deposits in the Permian of Oklahoma have spawned efforts for an international research coring campaign to recover the longest continuous record of climate ever attempted, with the potential for abundant auxiliary science.