SUBJECT
Title
Major events in Earth history
Type of instruction
lecture
Level
master
Faculty
Part of degree program
Credits
2
Recommended in
Semester 1
Typically offered in
Autumn semester
Course description
- Introduction. What are the major events?
- History of biodiversity, extinction events.
- Large Igneous Provinces (LIP) – general introduction.
- The Emeishan LIP and the Siberian Traps. The end-Permian mass extinction. The end-Triassic mass extinction and the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP).
- Cretaceous LIPs: Paraná-Etendeka, Deccan Traps. Links to the Weissert event and the end-Cretaceous mass extinction.
- Introduction to paleoclimate reconstruction.
- PETM – The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum as an example of a rapid global warming event
- Oceanic Anoxic Events (OAE). The Toarcian OAE and the Weissert event in Hungary. Other Cretaceous OAEs.
- Ice ages in Earth history. The Snowball Earth
- Cenozoic ice ages
- The Anthropocene
Readings
- Courtillot, V. (2002): Evolutionary Catastrophes: The Science of Mass Extinction. Cambridge University Press, 188 p.
- Recommended readings provided during the course