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Forthcoming lecture: John Joly Memorial Lecture 2016

January 2016

John Jolly quotes

Jérôme GAILLARDET
Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris
 

The Rock-Atmosphere interface, the critical zone of the Earth
 
Friday 5 February 2016
6.00 pm
Schrodinger Lecture Theatre,
Fitzgerald Building, Physics, Trinity College, Dublin followed by light refreshments in the Fitzgerald Library
 

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The Joly Lecturer is Professor Jérôme Gaillardet (Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris).  His research interests are in chemical potamology, the scientific study of rivers, and in particular the global role of chemical weathering in the Earth. He has carried out important studies on elemental and isotopic geochemistry of sediments transported by rivers and produced by chemical weathering in soils. He has, together with colleagues, developed several techniques for measuring precise isotopic abundances in natural materials (B, Li, Zn, Mg) and applied these techniques to study rainwater, river water, sediments, and rocks.
 
John Joly, Professor of Geology and Mineralogy (1897-1933) is noted for his wide ranging research in radioactivity, colour photography, and mineralogy.  His paper of 1899 on the age of the Earth was highly influential, and in it he documented the sodium runoff in the Earth's major river systems, and estimated the rate of accumulation in the oceans. The idea of quantifying the riverine sodium flux and the element’s accumulation in the oceans thus makes Joly one of the earliest quantitative potamologist.