SEMINAR: Sea Secrets Lecture - TOMORROW - OF ICE, ANTARCTICA & AMMONITES: SAVING SOUTH FLORIDA by Peter Ward - May 18 at 5:30pm

[Laura Bracken <lbracken@rsmas.miami.edu>]

Please join us for the final presentation of the

2011 Sea Secrets Lecture Series:

OF ICE, ANTARCTICA & AMMONITES:

SAVING SOUTH FLORIDA

 

Dr. Peter Ward

Professor of Paleontology

University of Washington

 

Nothing may be more critical to Floridians than knowing if sea level rise will flood our shores. Some key answers may come from thousands of miles away, in Antarctica. There, teams of geologists and paleontologists led by Professor Peter Ward are exploring sixty-million year old rocks for fossil evidence of ice sheets. Using ancient relatives of the chambered nautilus, called ammonites, they are hoping to establish whether ice sheets existed back then. At that time we know atmospheric carbon dioxide topped 1000 ppm — or about three times present levels — and ice sheets seemingly remained intact. If there were indeed ice sheets under such high carbon dioxide and there was limited sea level rise, perhaps we are not in as much danger as we thought — at least in the short term?

  

SEA SECRETS LECTURE SERIES

 Presented by the UM Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science and The Ocean Research and Education Foundation

 WEDNESDAY, May 18, 2011

 Reception begins at 5:30 p.m., followed by the lecture at 6:00 p.m.

Rosenstiel School Auditorium

4600 Rickenbacker Causeway, Virginia Key, FL 33149

 

All events are free and open to the public; however seating is limited.

Laura Bracken

Alumni & Outreach Manager, Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science
Science & Education Specialist, R.J. Dunlap Marine Conservation Program

University of Miami 
4600 Rickenbacker Causeway
Miami, FL 33149
305-421-4207 office
610-306-1926 mobile
305-421-4931 fax