UA’s ALLELE Lecturer to Discuss Evolution’s Impact on Climate Change

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Dr. Gregory Retallack, a world-leading expert in fossil plants and soil and a professor of geological sciences at the University of Oregon, will present the next lecture in The University of Alabama’s 2013-2014 ALLELE Lecture series Thursday, Jan. 16 at 7:30 p.m. in the Biology Building Auditorium on the UA campus.

Retallack will speak on, “Global Cooling by Grassland Soils in the Geological Past and Near Future.” He will discuss major innovations in the evolution of vegetation and how changes in organisms can affect world climate.

ALLELE lectures are coordinated by UA’s Evolution Working Group, and they are free and open to the public.

“Just as the origin of forests triggered global cooling and the Permian-Carboniferous Ice Age, more recent ice ages may have been induced by global expansion of grasslands,” Retallack said. “Soils of grasslands have evolved and become more carbon-rich over time, so they have been a biological force for global cooling. Grassland soils are the basis for agriculture, and carbon farming techniques may be useful in curbing global warming today.”

He will also give a departmental talk, “Precambrian Life on Land,” Friday, Jan. 17 at 3:30 p.m. in room 110 of the Alabama Innovation and Mentoring of Entrepreneurs, or AIME, building on the UA campus. In this talk, Retallack will discuss how close inspection of fossil soils indicates that life may have existed on land much earlier in history than scientists previously thought. In recent years, Retallack has published 23 papers on this controversial topic, including a widely publicized letter in the British journal Nature in January 2013. This talk is free and open to the public.

Retallack has been a full professor at the University of Oregon since 1992, where he is also the director of the Condon Collection of the University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History. His research focuses on paleobotany and paleosols.

He has published 13 books and more than 225 scientific papers on the fossil record of soils. His work has been recognized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Geological Society of America. He is an elected Fellow of both organizations. He has also received the Stillwell Award from the Geological Society of Australia, the Antarctic Service Medal from the U.S. National Science Foundation, and an Editor’s Choice award from the journal Science.

He received a Bachelor of Arts in geology and biology from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia and a doctorate from the University of New England in Australia. He completed postdoctoral work at Indiana University.

The 2013-2014 ALLELE series is supported by UA’s College of Arts and Sciences and the departments of anthropology, biological sciences, communicative disorders, geological sciences, philosophy and religious studies.

UA’s College of Arts and Sciences is the University’s largest division and the largest liberal arts college in the state. Students from the College have won numerous national awards including Rhodes Scholarships, Goldwater Scholarships and memberships on the USA Today Academic All American Team.