Public evening lecture as part of the lecture series "Discovering origins: A journey from the beginnings of the earth to the emergence of humankind"
by Professor Dr. Martin Meschede (University of Greifswald, Institute of Geography and Geology) and Professor Dr. Christian von Savigny (University of Greifswald, Institute of Physics)
4.57 billion years ago, two planets collided with each other in the still young solar system. Their fusion created today's Earth-Moon system. Because the Earth's body was subject to gravity, heavy elements sank downwards and formed the Earth's core, while light elements accumulated in the Earth's mantle and the outer lithosphere. How did it come about that the originally homogeneous body of the Earth is now divided into 5 different spheres and continues to change constantly as a result of plate tectonic processes?
The chemical composition of the Earth's atmosphere is very well known today and is already the subject of school lessons. Nine gases make up 99.9999 percent of the volume of the atmosphere: Nitrogen, oxygen, water vapor, carbon dioxide, the noble gases argon, neon, helium and krypton as well as methane. The remaining millionth consists of hundreds to thousands of trace gases. But why does the atmosphere consist of about 78% molecular nitrogen or about 1% argon? How has the Earth's atmosphere developed since the formation of the Earth and how did today's modern atmosphere come about?
Martin Meschede studied at the University of Hanover and the Technical University of Munich. He completed his doctorate at the University of Tübingen and habilitated there in 1994. He has been Professor of Regional and Structural Geology at the University of Greifswald since 2001. He is currently the President of the German Geological Society - Geological Association (DGGV). His research focuses on plate tectonics, marine geology, geodynamics, structural geology and the regional geology of Central America, the Eastern Pacific region and northern Central Europe. In addition to numerous scientific publications, he has written the now widely used textbook "Geology of Germany" and, together with Wolfgang Frisch, Tübingen/Vienna, the textbook "Plate Tectonics".
Christian von Savigny studied physics and atmospheric sciences at the Universities of Tübingen and Heidelberg and at York University (Toronto). He received his doctorate from York University in 2002 and habilitated at the Institute of Environmental Physics at the University of Bremen in 2009. He has been Professor of Environmental Physics at the University of Greifswald since 2012. His research focuses on stratospheric and mesospheric aerosols, volcanic effects on the atmosphere, airglow and remote sensing of the atmosphere in the optical spectral range.
Moderation: Dr. Christian Suhm
