When
Wednesday April 26, 2017 at 12:30-14:00
Where
Undervisningslokalet Øster Farimagsgade 2D
What
Sune F Månsson will defend his MSc thesis entitled:
“Did Bioturbating Animals in the Early Cambrian Influence the Global Biogeochemical Cycles of Carbon and Sulfur?”
Abstract
A major global change in the biogeochemical cycle of carbon in the Early Cambrian, Stage 2 can be observed as a drop in the geological inorganic carbon isotope record. In this thesis, a completely new CAS-isotope data set from Siberian rock samples was produced and showed a similar change in the global marine sulfur cycle. Evidence from the trace fossil record shows that the major global changes in the carbon and sulfur cycles coincide with an increase in bioturbation from animals. This thesis examined whether the appearance and proliferation of bioturbating animals could have been the driver for the observed changes in the biogeochemical cycles of carbon and sulfur? Through literature review, experiments and numerical models, it seems probable that bioturbation could have changed the biogeochemical cycles by decreasing the burial of refractory organic matter and pyrite in the Cambrian sediments.
Supervisor: Tais W. Dahl, Geobiology and Mineralogy Section, Natural History Museum of Denmark