December 7, 2017: IRES Special Seminar
Speaker: Bradley Eyre
(Last Seminar for Term 1)

IRES Seminar Series

Time: 12:30pm to 1:30pm (every Thursday)

Location: AERL Theatre (room 120), 2202 Main Mall

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Role of shallow water carbonate sediment dissolution in the future accretion of coral reefs in an acidifying ocean

 

Abstract: Ocean acidification (OA) is predicted to have a significant impact on the future of coral reefs, mainly through the reduced formation of calcium carbonate (CaCO3). However, the dissolution of stored CaCO3 has largely been overlooked in the OA community. CaCO3 sediments represent the largest reservoir of carbonate minerals in coral reefs and result from the accumulation and storage of CaCO3 material over thousands of years. Benthic chamber incubations in permeable CaCO3 sediments show that aragonite saturation in the overlying water is a strong predictor of CaCO3 sediment dissolution and most reefs show a similar response to increasing average pCO2 (OA). However, every reef shows a different net sediment dissolution starting condition and the effect of end of century OA conditions on net sediment dissolution is different for every reef. Empirical relationships between average aragonite saturation and net ecosystem calcification, coral calcification and sediment dissolution from reefs around the globe are used to quantify future changes in the CaCO3 accretion of coral reefs. Quantifying the global dissolution kinetics of permeable CaCO3 sediments is clearly just as important as estimating calcification rates when predicting how OA will impact coral reef ecosystems.

This seminar will not be filmed.

 

Bio: Professor Bradley Eyre is a biogeochemist and the foundation Director of the Centre for Coastal Biogeochemistry at Southern Cross University, Australia. His publications include topics such as whole ecosystem carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus budgets, net ecosystem metabolism estimates, benthic and pelagic production and respiration, dissolved organic carbon fluxes, carbon stable isotopes (fluxes and assimilation), carbon burial and air-sea GHG flux estimates, benthic denitrification, benthic habitats and seascapes, historical and ecosystem comparisons, ocean acidification, hypoxia, eutrophication, submarine groundwater discharge, permeable sands and carbonate sediment dissolution. Professor Eyre has 157 articles in Scopus listed journals (H-index = 44, Total citations >5000, Google Scholar; H-index = 35, Total citations>3500, Scopus) and has attracted over >$20 million in funding. He has mentored 14 early- and mid-career researchers and supervised 32 PhD students.

Professor Eyre is a Visiting Professor in IRES from December 2017 to February 2018.

 

 

Photo Credit: The Coral Reefs from flickr / Creative Commons