2014 Sino-UK Coevolution of Life and the Planet Summer School
Palaeoenvironmental Research
Palaeoenvironmental Research
The 2014 Sino-UK Coevolution of Life and the Planet Summer
School, which was held in Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology from
5th July to 11th July, has ended successfully. More than 40 participants took
part from Maryland University (USA), University College London (UK) and 12
Chinese institutions. The summer school had the ‘Coevolution of life and the
Planet: Palaeoenvironmental Research’ as its main theme. Coevolution, a recent
topic of interest in the Geosciences, requires interdisciplinary research in
the general domain of the Earth system sciences.
The purpose of 2014 Sino-UK Coevolution of Life and the Planet Summer School is to provide graduate students and early career postdoctoral researchers from relevant fields with an overview of state-of-the-art and hands-on paleoenvironmental research under the general focus of Coevolution; it also provides the participants a great opportunity to communicate with the invited scientists. 7 leading scientists were invited to teach during the school: Prof. Martin Brasier from Oxford University; Prof. Simon Poulton from Leeds University; Prof. Hongfei Ling from Nanjing University; Prof. Xiangkun Zhu from Chinese Academy of Geosciences; Prof. Changqun Cao, Prof. Graham Shields and Prof. Maoyan Zhu from NIGPAS. They are all senior researchers working actively in various earth science disciplines from the UK and China.
The school was composed of 2 days of field course and 5 days of lectures and seminars. The first day of field course was led by Prof. Maoyan Zhu and Professor Shields with focus on Ordovician Strata plus sampling protocols; the second day of field course was led by Prof. Changqun Cao on the P-T GSSP site in Changxing County, Zhejiang province. For the seminar part, the main subjects this school covered included: 1. Stratigraphy and Sedimentology for Paleoenvironmental Research; 2. Chemostratigraphy; 3. Carbon Isotope interpretations and lab tour; 4. Sulphur isotopes and Carbonate associated Sulphate; 5. Non-traditional stable isotopes; 6. Redox Geochemistry and Redox controls on Nutrient Cycling; 7. Principles of Mo Isotope composition as A Proxy of Global Oceanic Oxygenation State; 8. Introduction to biomarkers (Lab tour); and 9. Early steps in biological evolution: earliest signs of life, earliest eukaryotes and life on land and earliest animals.
The school was funded by Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology funded 973 Project ‘From Snowball Earth to the Cambrian Explosion: Coevolution of Life and Environment around 600 myr ago’, NERC funded Research Programme: ‘Long Term Coevolution of Life and the Plane’, Chinese Natural Science Foundation (NSFC), State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, NIGPAS and NIGPAS Laboratory Centre (南古所技术服务中心).
The purpose of 2014 Sino-UK Coevolution of Life and the Planet Summer School is to provide graduate students and early career postdoctoral researchers from relevant fields with an overview of state-of-the-art and hands-on paleoenvironmental research under the general focus of Coevolution; it also provides the participants a great opportunity to communicate with the invited scientists. 7 leading scientists were invited to teach during the school: Prof. Martin Brasier from Oxford University; Prof. Simon Poulton from Leeds University; Prof. Hongfei Ling from Nanjing University; Prof. Xiangkun Zhu from Chinese Academy of Geosciences; Prof. Changqun Cao, Prof. Graham Shields and Prof. Maoyan Zhu from NIGPAS. They are all senior researchers working actively in various earth science disciplines from the UK and China.
The school was composed of 2 days of field course and 5 days of lectures and seminars. The first day of field course was led by Prof. Maoyan Zhu and Professor Shields with focus on Ordovician Strata plus sampling protocols; the second day of field course was led by Prof. Changqun Cao on the P-T GSSP site in Changxing County, Zhejiang province. For the seminar part, the main subjects this school covered included: 1. Stratigraphy and Sedimentology for Paleoenvironmental Research; 2. Chemostratigraphy; 3. Carbon Isotope interpretations and lab tour; 4. Sulphur isotopes and Carbonate associated Sulphate; 5. Non-traditional stable isotopes; 6. Redox Geochemistry and Redox controls on Nutrient Cycling; 7. Principles of Mo Isotope composition as A Proxy of Global Oceanic Oxygenation State; 8. Introduction to biomarkers (Lab tour); and 9. Early steps in biological evolution: earliest signs of life, earliest eukaryotes and life on land and earliest animals.
The school was funded by Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology funded 973 Project ‘From Snowball Earth to the Cambrian Explosion: Coevolution of Life and Environment around 600 myr ago’, NERC funded Research Programme: ‘Long Term Coevolution of Life and the Plane’, Chinese Natural Science Foundation (NSFC), State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, NIGPAS and NIGPAS Laboratory Centre (南古所技术服务中心).
To download the talks please go to the page on www.lifeandplanet.net.cn: Events/Summer/Spring School/Talks and download. Because of the sensitivity of some unpublished data, the download page is password protected and only accessable to the Summer School participants.
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Invited Lecturers
Martin Brasier: Professor of Palaeobiology at the University of Oxford,
Martin is also a Fellow of St Edmund Hall, Oxford and he has been
awarded the 2014 Lyell Medal. Martin’s
major research interest focuses on: patterns and processes in the Cambrian
explosion; origins of the animal phyla; the dynamics of reefal and
foraminiferal symbioses through deep time; phosphorus and the carbon cycle in
deep time; origins of terrestrial ecosystems; the earliest fossil record; and
the origins of life itself. His current areas of field activity include the
Archaean of Australia and the Proterozoic and Cambrian of Australia, Asia and
Oman as well as Britain.
Graham Shields: Professor of Geology at the Department of Earth Sciences, University College London, UK. Graham ‘s research direction is Isotope Geochemistry, Sedimentary Geology, Earth System science (Precambrian-Cambrian). He uses geochemical and isotopic tracers to study the evolutionary dynamics of our planet's oceans and atmosphere during the awakening of biological complexity amid climatic and tectonic upheaval: about 1000-500 million years ago. Maoyan Zhu: Research Professor at Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Maoyan’s research interests focus on the origin and early evolution of animals, Ediacaran and Cambrian stratigraphy, involving research on the problematic invertebrate fossils, taphonomy of the fossil-lagerstätten, trace fossils, paleoecology and paleoenvironments, and integrated stratigraphy. Maoyan has been very active for international cooperation between China and other countries (Germany, Australia, the UK and USA) and played a key role for many of the combined projects. Simon Poulton: Chair in Biogeochemistry & Earth History at the School of Earth and Environment, Leeds University, UK. Simon’s research interest can be divided into four areas: 1. Chemical Evolution of the Earth's Biosphere. 2. Nutrient Availability Through Time. 3. Modern Redox Sensitive Environments. and 4. Experimental Reaction Kinetics and Mechanisms. Simon has been rewarded with NERC Fellowship (2005-2008) 'Chemical evolution of the Proterozoic biosphere' and Marie Curie Fellowship (2002-2004) 'Oceanic phosphorus cycling in modern and ancient metalliferous sediments' in the past. Hongfei Ling: Professor of Geochemistry at the Department of Earth Sciences, Nanjing University, China. Hongfei was a visiting scholar from 1994 to 1995 at University of Cambridge; from 1995-1996 he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Oxford. His research interests focus on geochemistry (esp. Mo, Sr, Nd, C, S, N); Palaeoceanography and Mineralization of uranium. Xiangkun Zhu: Research Professor at Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. From 1997 onwards, his researches mainly focus on two kinds of projects: global climate change, and isotopes of transitional metals and their implications in geochemistry, cosmochemistry and biogeochemistry. These projects are still in progress, but some achievements have already been made, which include: Technical developments of Cu-, Fe-, and Zn-isotope analysis using plasma source mass spectrometry (MC-ICPMS) and Investigation of the natural variations of Fe, Cu and Zn isotopes and their potential to be used as tracers in geochemical and biological processes etc. Changqun Cao: Research Professor at Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Changqun’s research interest focuses on the geochemical palaeoenvironment during the Permian-Triassic transition, particularly under the applications of stable C-isotope and molecular organic geochemistry. In recent years, Changqun’s researching field has been extended to the marine Permian Lopingian strata in southern China, especially on the investigations of C-isotopic excursions and lipid biomarker evidence. |
Topics of their talks
In search of the earliest signs of life on Earth The emergence of eukaryotes The emergence of animals Chemostratigraphy Carbon Isotope interpretations Sulphur isotopes and Carbonate associated Sulphate Age and rate -- temporal resolution of the earth-life co-evolution in deep time:Fundamental principles of Stratigraphy; Sedimentology: the base for Stratigraphy and Palaeoenvironmental reconstruction Redox Geochemistry Redox Proxies Redox controls on Nutrient Cycling Principle of Mo Isotope composition as A Proxy of Global Oceanic Oxygenation State A brief introduction to the history and analytical techneques of non-traditional stable isotopes An overview of Fe isotope systematics Case studies Organic geochemistry and Biomarker lab training |
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Field
Course lecturers
Maoyan Zhu; Graham Shields Changqun Cao |
Fieldwork
Ordovician Strata plus sampling protocols (Tangshan, Nanjing) P-T GSSP site in Changxing County, Zhejiang province |