Time：10:00-11:00 am., 4th November 2018 (Sunday)
Venue：Lecture Hall 221, Institute of Surface-Earth System Science (Building No. 16), Tianjin University
Speaker：Prof. Fin Stuart, University of Glasgow, UK
Abstract：
The last two decades have seen the development of routine techniques for determining the concentration of cosmogenic nuclides in terrestrial rocks and minerals. The widespread application of, in particular, cosmogenic radionuclides (10Be and 26Al) has led to a step change in knowledge of the timing and rates of Earth surface processes. The stable cosmogenic nuclides 3He and 21Ne have higher production rates than the radionuclides, and can be measured on conventional gas source mass spectrometers that are significantly less expensive and require less manpower to operate than the accelerator mass spectrometers (AMS) required for radionuclides. Despite this relative efficiency, cosmogenic nuclides have been exploited far less routinely, due in large part to the presence of other sources of 3He and 21Ne in minerals that must be quantified precisely prior to successful application of the technique. I will introduce the concepts behind the production and measurement of cosmogenic 3He and 21Ne, then will present several examples of how we use them to understand the long-term history of the Earth surface.
Biography of the speaker:
Dr. Fin Stuart is Professor of Isotope Geoscience at University of Glasgow, and the Director of Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre. He defended his PhD at University of Manchester in 1992 and joined SUERC in 1994. He is the head of the Noble Gas Laboratories at SUERC, his research interests include: (1) the differentiation history of planet Earth, and the generation of the atmosphere, (2) tracing the source and the interaction history of modern and ancient fluids in the Earth crust, (3) using cosmogenic isotopes to determine the controls of long-term landscape change and (4) using low temperature thermochronometers for constraining the tectonic history of the shallow crust. He has published more than 160 peer-reviewed papers in international journals, including Nature, EPSL, GCA and Geology, and has supervised 22 PhD students.
