The purpose of the Earth and Space Sciences Colloquium Series is to present hot topics of broad scientific interest in an exciting and accessible way. It is distinct from the specialized talks in sub-fields of the Department held on every day of the week. The colloquia are held at 4pm every Thursday in Geology room 3656. They are preceded by “Cookies ‘n’ Coffee” in the Commons Room (Geology 3680) from 3:30pm – 4:00pm.
Spring 2013 Schedule
Winter 2013 Schedule
Special Colloquium Series Honoring the National & International Medalists of UCLA’s Department of Earth & Space Sciences
| DATE | SPEAKER | TITLE |
| 01/10/2013 | David Jewitt (Shaw Prize in Astronomy – Shaw Prize Foundation; Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement – NASA; Kavli Prize in Astrophysics – Norwegian Academy of Sciences) | Asteroid Freaks |
| 01/17/2013 | Mark Harrison (Arthur L. Day Medal – Geological Society of America) | No Country for Old Geochemists |
| 01/24/2013 | Bruce Runnegar (Lapworth Medal – Palaeontological Association; Mawson Medal – Australian Academy of Science; Paleontological Society Medal – Paleontological Society) | Molecular Clocks and the Cambrian Explosion: What have we Learned? |
| 01/31/2013 | Bill Schopf (Paleontological Society Medal – Paleontological Society; Golden Plate Medal – American Academy of Achievement; Centennial Botanist Award – Botanical Society of America; Mary Clark Thompson Medal – National Academy of Sciences; Alan T. Waterman Award – National Science Foundation – National Science Board; Alexandre Ivanovich Oparin Medal – International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life) | The Earliest History of Life: Solution to Darwin’s Dilemma |
| 02/07/2013 | John Wasson (Leonard Medal – Meteoritical Society; J. Lawrence Smith Medal – National Academy of Sciences) | The Heterogeneous Accretion of the Solar Nebula |
| 02/14/2013 | Gerald Schubert (Harry H. Hess Medal – American Geophysical Union; James B. Macelwane Medal – American Geophysical Union) | Inside Moons and Planets |
| 02/21/2013 | Margaret Kivelson (Hannes Alfvén Medal – European Geosciences Union; John Adam Fleming Medal – American Geophysical Union) | Fifty Years of Planetary Exploration: A Plasma Science Perspective |
| 02/28/2013 | Chris Russell (John Adam Fleming Medal – American Geophysical Union; James B. Macelwane Medal – American Geophysical Union) | Exploring Vesta and Ceres |
| 03/07/2013 | Vassilis Angelopoulos (James B. Macelwane Medal – American Geophysical Union; Zeldovich Medal – Russian Academy of Science & Committee on Space Research/ICSU) | Tale of Earth’s Tail: An Integrated Heliophysics System Observatory Viewpoint |
| 03/14/2013 | An Yin (Donath Medal – Geological Society of America) | Rise and Fall of Ancient Tibetan Kingdom Shu: A Paleoseismological Perspective |
Fall 2012 Schedule
| DATE | SPEAKER | TITLE |
| 9/27/2012 | Bernard Hallet (Univ. of Washington) | Erosion in the Himalaya: Self-organized balance |
| 10/4/2012 | Carl Steefel (Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory) | Time Scales of Carbonate Mineral Sequestration of CO2 in the Subsurface |
| 10/11/2012 | Sarah Aciego (Univ. of Michigan) | Evolution of glacial meltwater drainage systems revealed by heavy isotopes |
| 10/18/2012 | Anders Carlson (Univ. of Wisconsin/Oregon State Univ.) | Southwest Greenland Ice-sheet Sensitivity to Climate |
| 10/25/2012 | Dave McComas (Southwest Research Institute) | The Interstellar Boundary Explorer – IBEX |
| 11/1/2012 | Lorraine Lisiecki (UCSB) | Ocean Circulation, Ice Volume, & CO2 in the Late Pleistocene |
| 11/8/2012 | Patricia Dove (Virginia Tech) | TBD |
| 11/15/2012 | Sean Solomon (Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory) | MESSENGER at Mercury: The Surprising Innermost Planet |
| 11/23/2012 | No Seminar - Thanksgiving | |
| 11/29/2012 | Isabel Montanez (UC Davis) | Earth’s Deep-time Insight into Our Climate Future |
| 12/6/2012 | Yakov Galperin (Environmental Geochemistry Consulting) | Oil in the Gulf of Mexico After the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill |
Spring 2012 Schedule
Winter 2012 Schedule
| DATE | SPEAKER | TITLE |
| 1/12/2012 | No Seminar | |
| 1/19/2012 | German Prieto (Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia) | The Bucaramanga Nest: A Natural Lab for Understanding the Physics of Intermediate-depth Earthquakes |
| 1/26/2012 | Michael Jura (UCLA) | Is the Earth Normal? |
| 2/2/2012 | Pupa Gilbert (Univ. of Wisconsin) | Mapping the Amorphous-to-Crystalline Transitions in CaCO3 Biominerals |
| 2/9/2012 | Troy Carter (UCLA) | An overview of fusion energy research: Taming turbulence and transport in magnetized plasmas |
| 2/16/2012 | Max Werner (ETH Zurich/Princeton) | TBA |
| 2/23/2012 | Yoshihiro Kaneko (UCSD) | Towards inferring fault rheological properties and predicting future earthquake patterns from seimographs |
| 3/1/2012 | Britney Schmidt (U. of Texas) | Europa’s Great Lakes |
| 3/8/2012 | Rajeep Dasgupta (Rice University) | Ingassing, Storage, and Outgassing of Terrestrial Carbon through Geologic Time |
| 3/15/2012 | An Yin (UCLA) | Cenozoic evolution of the Himalayan Drainage System |
Fall 2011 Schedule
| DATE | SPEAKER | TITLE |
| 9/22/2011 | Dave Trilling (Northern Arizona Univ.) | At the edges of the solar system |
| 9/29/2011 | David Jacobs (UCLA) | Physical Processes and Evolutionary Consequences |
| 10/6/2011 | Victor Baker (Univ. of Arizona) | Megafloods |
| 10/13/2011 | Kim Kastens(Columbia University) | Thinking and Learning in the Geosciences |
| 10/20/2011 | Abby Kavner(UCLA) | The Electrochemical Earth |
| 10/27/2011 | Melany Hunt (Caltech) | Booming Dunes and Beyond |
| 11/3/2011 | Kevin Hand (JPL) | Ocean Worlds of the Outer Solar System |
| 11/10/2011 | Karel Schrijver (Lockheed-Martin Advanced Technology Center) | Solar Variability and the Sun-Earth Connection |
| 11/17/2011 | David Paige & Jean-Luc Margot (UCLA) | Mercury Revealed |
| 11/24/2011 | No Seminar – Thanksgiving | |
| 12/1/2011 | Darlene Lim (NASA Ames Research Center) | Astrobiology of Lakes |