Public Lecture on Earth's fully warmed climate - in the Cretaceous Period, by Professor Jane Francis

All are welcome to this free Public Lecture presented by the Geological Society of Norfolk, in association with the Norwich Science Festival (https://norwichsciencefestival.co.uk).
It will be given by Professor Dame Jane Francis, FRS, who is the Director of the British Antactric Survey, and an expert on past climates using evidence from fossil plants, and on the geology of the polar regions.
She will discuss the fossil evidence for Earth’s climate during the Cretaceous Period 145 to 66 million years ago, which includes the time when our East Anglian Chalk was deposited and sea level was 200 metres higher than today. The evidence from Antarctica and the southern continents is particularly striking, with forests where today there are kilometres-thick ice sheets. Is this what we are ultimately heading towards as the present climate warms?

Lecture Title and Summary: “Cretaceous climates - 79 million years of greenhouse warmth or intervals of glaciation?”
The classic view of the Cretaceous is that it was a 79 million-year period of uniformly warm greenhouse climates. Fossil evidence of forests and dinosaurs living in the Cretaceous polar regions indicates that there were certainly intervals of globally warm climates during that time. However, there is also new evidence of cold climates and even glaciations, paradoxically from the hot deserts of central Australia!

The lecture will be given in the Auditorium at the Forum, Norwich. Doors open from 7.00 pm. Entry free.

Category: Attractions | Talks and Lectures