Event type:
Evening meeting, Lecture, Regional Group, Virtual event
Organised by:
North West Regional Group
Event status:
EVENT CLOSED
Join the North West Regional Group of the Geological Society for a fascinating look at the Earth 65 million years ago, including yet-to-be-published work from the sharp end of 21st century palaeontological research.
65 million years ago the dinosaurs went extinct. The discovery of a key geochemical signal in rocks from northern Italy in the 1980s led to an impact hypothesis for the end of the age of dinosaurs. Since then, new evidence has provided an impact site centred on the Yucatan Peninsula (Mexico), which was the focus of this extinction-level event.
The timing and effects of a 10km-wide object smashing into Earth has been long debated, but there has been frustratingly little evidence to give anything more than a broad brush-stroke reconstruction of events on the last day of the dinosaurs.
However, a suite of new sites that mark the boundary between the Cretaceous and Palaeogene (KPg) are now shedding new light on both the effects felt and the timing of events on what many could view as the first day of the mammals!
This talk will begin at 6.30pm.
Speaker
Phil Manning, Professor of Natural History at the University of Manchester
Phil Manning is Professor of Natural History in the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences at the University of Manchester, where he is also Director of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Ancient Life. Phil is also a Scientist in Residence at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis (USA) where he is currently co-leading an international team working on a new dinosaur-rich site in Wyoming (USA) often called ‘Mission Jurassic’, with the ICAL team from Manchester and colleagues at the Naturalis Biodiversity Centre (Netherlands).
Phil is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and also a Fellow of the Explorer’s Club (New York). When he is not teaching, excavating in the field or working at a particle accelerator, you will often find Phil giving talks around the globe on the importance of understanding more about the history of life on Earth.
Registration
Registration is open now via Zoom.
Venue
This event will be virtual.
Contact
Please get in touch with the North West Regional Group via [email protected] with any enquiries.