2015 AAAS Annual Meeting (12-16 February 2015)

February 12 - 16, 2015

Earth History: Innovative Approaches to Studying Critical Transitions

This symposium highlights the results of new multidisciplinary research focused on understanding paleobiological, climatic, and environmental transitions throughout Earth history. These collaborative efforts are making use of tools from across the spectrum of sedimentary crust science, including biology, paleontology, paleoecology, taphonomy and sedimentary geology, paleoenvironmental and basin analysis, geochemistry, geochronology, and modeling of sedimentary systems, extinctions, evolutionary events, paleoclimate, and paleoceanography. Presentations focus on critical time intervals from 2.5 billion years ago to the present and address the big questions related to Earth-life interactions. With the new Earth-Life Transition (ELT) program at the National Science Foundation and the incorporation of new data and cross-disciplinary approaches to data analysis and synthesis, these teams are generating a greater understanding of present and past environmental change, making it possible to understand future events and Earth system states.