{"id":106,"date":"2017-07-29T15:01:32","date_gmt":"2017-07-29T19:01:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st132origins\/?page_id=106"},"modified":"2017-09-07T10:53:32","modified_gmt":"2017-09-07T14:53:32","slug":"sept-26-david-bercovici","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st132origins\/sept-26-david-bercovici\/","title":{"rendered":"Sept. 26 David Bercovici"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cOrigin and Evolution of the Earth\u201d<\/p>\n

Abstract:
\nAlthough our existence on a habitable planet can largely be taken for granted, how Earth arrived at this state of \u2018habitability\u2019 is far from obvious.\u00a0 How the planets even formed is still not well understood. There are not only numerous hurdles to forming a solar system let alone a planet, but their formation must all be done extremely quickly (on a cosmological\/geological time scale) before the Sun ignites its fusion furnace.\u00a0 Once a terrestrial planet is created, its evolution is controlled by how it slowly cools to space, which drives its internal motion by convection, much like any fluid, such as soup or coffee, cools.\u00a0 On Earth, convection led to plate tectonics, which in turn led to the formation of continents and ocean basins, and set the geological carbon cycle that keeps our oceans liquid and makes our atmosphere and climate habitable. But only Earth has plate tectonics amongst all the terrestrial planets we know, and why that is so also remains a major scientific mystery.<\/p>\n

Short Bio:
\nDavid Bercovici received his BS in Physics from Harvey Mudd College (1982) and his Ph.D. in Geophysics and Space Physics from UCLA (1989). After a postdoctoral fellowship at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (1989-1990) he joined the faculty at the University of Hawaii (1990-2000).\u00a0 He moved to Yale in 2001 and has been there ever since as Professor and even Chair (2006-2012).\u00a0 Bercovici received the Macelwane Medal from the American Geophysical Union (AGU), along with Fellowship in AGU, in 1996.\u00a0 He was elected to\u00a0 the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2015. He is an expert in planetary physics and geophysical fluid dynamics, and works on the origin of plate tectonics, convection in the Earth\u2019s deep interior, magma dynamics and volcanic eruptions.<\/p>\n