Periodic Reporting for period 1 - NEOEARTH (Whole Earth Systems During Neoproterozoic Animal Evolution)
Reporting period: 2021-03-08 to 2023-03-07
This project looked at linking the physical rocky Earth with the atmosphere, biosphere and hydrosphere. This was done with a particular focus on the time that complex life first evolved (the Ediacaran period, about 570 million years ago) and then analysing how and why the environment changes from this time to present-day when intelligent life evolved. While such questions have always been burning on inquisitive minds and been subject to numerous studies (and will continue to be so), we decided to approach the problem from a different direction.
My approach was to build a ‘bottom-up’ view of the world, reconstructing the palaeogeographic (i.e. where are the mountain ranges and ocean basins) and palaeotectonic (i.e. where are the subduction zones and mid-ocean ridges) framework of the planet. Because these parameters control the main cooling and warming mechanisms of Earth’s climate, they regulate the temperature and surface conditions. By approaching the problem in this way we were able to concretely link the planet’s evolution, from rocky exterior, to climate, oceans, plants and mountains and life.
In addition to building the framework, the project also put together an open-source and freely available tool to help link all the different building blocks together. This is the pySCION model (a fully pythonic version of the SCION climate-biogeochemical model), a forward carbon-cycle model operating on 10–100 million year timescales. pySCION uses global maps of different palaeotectonic features, such as mountain ranges, locations of continents and oceans, temperature and runoff to estimate Earth's surface conditions (weathering, temperature, pCO2 etc.). Thus, this model connects the individual work packages of the project into a coherent way to visualise and test Earth’s evolving climate and surface environments.
This work directly touches on many fundamental questions that engage society and people of all ages. Why is Earth habitable? How did life evolve? Why do we have icecaps and mountains and forests and why did they form when they did? Because the work done in this project encompasses multiple Earth ‘spheres’, we can begin to start offering firm answers to these questions grounded in the physical Earth
My approach was to build a ‘bottom-up’ view of the world, reconstructing the palaeogeographic (i.e. where are the mountain ranges and ocean basins) and palaeotectonic (i.e. where are the subduction zones and mid-ocean ridges) framework of the planet. Because these parameters control the main cooling and warming mechanisms of Earth’s climate, they regulate the temperature and surface conditions. By approaching the problem in this way we were able to concretely link the planet’s evolution, from rocky exterior, to climate, oceans, plants and mountains and life.
In addition to building the framework, the project also put together an open-source and freely available tool to help link all the different building blocks together. This is the pySCION model (a fully pythonic version of the SCION climate-biogeochemical model), a forward carbon-cycle model operating on 10–100 million year timescales. pySCION uses global maps of different palaeotectonic features, such as mountain ranges, locations of continents and oceans, temperature and runoff to estimate Earth's surface conditions (weathering, temperature, pCO2 etc.). Thus, this model connects the individual work packages of the project into a coherent way to visualise and test Earth’s evolving climate and surface environments.
This work directly touches on many fundamental questions that engage society and people of all ages. Why is Earth habitable? How did life evolve? Why do we have icecaps and mountains and forests and why did they form when they did? Because the work done in this project encompasses multiple Earth ‘spheres’, we can begin to start offering firm answers to these questions grounded in the physical Earth
Work for this project was conducted through 3 work packages. WP1 pertained to constructing the physical boundaries of the Earth required for forward carbon-cycle modelling (e.g. palaeotopograhy) and producing estimates of solid-Earth degassing (i.e. the volume of carbon being expelled from the Earth into the atmosphere). WP2 related to surface system modelling (palaeoclimate and carbon-cycle modelling) and linking together the boundary conditions constructed in WP1.
WP1 contributed to three journal publications (Nature, Nature Geoscience and Science Advances), a submission (in review at Nature) with further work currently prepared for submission. WP2 contributed to another two publications (Nature and Nature Geoscience), and a suite of boundary conditions (palaeotopography, geography and bathymetry) currently being run as palaeoclimate simulations. Results were presented at three international conferences and two domestic (limited because of Covid, parental leave and complications with university travel agents).
During my time at Leeds I was able to participate fully within a number of working groups at the University. This included both research groups, where I acted as a Senior Post-doctoral Fellow and helped mentor PhD students and younger Early Career Researchers, and also within the School’s outreach group to high schools. Beyond the University of Leeds, I established a number of new working partnerships, principally with Early Career Researchers, across the UK and EU. These partnerships resulted in two visits to Leeds from new collaborators. Finally, work in this Fellowship contributed to three successful grant proposals, totalling in excess of €2 million. This includes a follow-up independent fellowship for myself.
WP1 contributed to three journal publications (Nature, Nature Geoscience and Science Advances), a submission (in review at Nature) with further work currently prepared for submission. WP2 contributed to another two publications (Nature and Nature Geoscience), and a suite of boundary conditions (palaeotopography, geography and bathymetry) currently being run as palaeoclimate simulations. Results were presented at three international conferences and two domestic (limited because of Covid, parental leave and complications with university travel agents).
During my time at Leeds I was able to participate fully within a number of working groups at the University. This included both research groups, where I acted as a Senior Post-doctoral Fellow and helped mentor PhD students and younger Early Career Researchers, and also within the School’s outreach group to high schools. Beyond the University of Leeds, I established a number of new working partnerships, principally with Early Career Researchers, across the UK and EU. These partnerships resulted in two visits to Leeds from new collaborators. Finally, work in this Fellowship contributed to three successful grant proposals, totalling in excess of €2 million. This includes a follow-up independent fellowship for myself.
This project set a new direction for carbon-cycle and long-term biogeochemical modelling through the explicit incorporation of geological and palaeotectonic data. The model developed as part of the fellowship provides a solid and concrete link between ‘boots-on-the-ground’ geology and how it controls and integrates with our planet’s long term evolution. Importantly, this project designed reproducible workflows allowing for the quantification of a series of physical boundary conditions (e.g. palaeogeography) important for understanding how the Earth's surface has evolved. While in this fellowship we only established the functional workflows with a few case studies, future work done by both myself and my advisor (B. Mills) and our collaborators will more fully utilise our workflows to quantitatively explore the sensitivity of the Earth system to perturbations in the physical Earth.
This project allowed me to hone and perfect a number of skills and develop a number of new ones also. In particular my ability to conceptualise, construct, evaluate and visualise models using python and matlab were extended, culminating in the publication of a python tool-box for plate reconstructions (GPlately). I was also able to focus on making as many workflows transparent and reproducible for the wider community, including those pertaining to data manipulation, management and storage. Some of the skills I learnt I was able to apply to projects beyond the remit of the MSCA with two other Early Career Researchers (Jacob Diamond and Maëlis Arnould).
This project allowed me to hone and perfect a number of skills and develop a number of new ones also. In particular my ability to conceptualise, construct, evaluate and visualise models using python and matlab were extended, culminating in the publication of a python tool-box for plate reconstructions (GPlately). I was also able to focus on making as many workflows transparent and reproducible for the wider community, including those pertaining to data manipulation, management and storage. Some of the skills I learnt I was able to apply to projects beyond the remit of the MSCA with two other Early Career Researchers (Jacob Diamond and Maëlis Arnould).