DYNAMIC EARTH – from Alfred Wegener to today and beyond – DYNAMISCHE ERDE – von Alfred Wegener bis heute und in die Zukunft
Exactly 100 years ago the most outstanding German Geoscientist Alfred Wegener published the first edition of his seminal book “Die Enstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane” (“The Origin of Continents and Oceans”). Today we all know that his seminal hypothesis was only accepted once the pieces of the “plate tectonics” puzzle were put together in the 1960’s. Wegener was 50 years ahead of his time. We should never forget that Wegener was a metereologist and astronomist. He pursued his research on the thermodynamcis of the atmosphere and impact craters with as much energy as his development of “continental drift”.
In our meeting Dynamic Earth – from Alfred Wegener to today and beyond we will review how Wegener’s findings evolved into to modern Earth system science including its impact on climate and the Earth surface, and how this system affects our daily life: where humans live, what risks we are exposed to, where we find our resources. In the meeting we invite the societies to propose sessions that cover the entire geoscience spectrum (from mineral physics over solid earth geodynamics to the climate sciences). We have invited keynote speakers that are eminent international scientists in these fields. In events open to the general public we will get an account of Wegeners final trip to Greenland on the history of science of his hypothesis.
The conference takes place in the Henry Ford Bau of the FU Berlin, is staged by the FU Berlin and GFZ Potsdam, and is supported by the Potsdam-Berlin Geosciences coordination platform Geo.X. It is the joint annual meeting of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geowissenschaften (DGG), Deutsche Mineralogische Gesellschaft (DMG), and Geologische Vereinigung (GV).
The Potsdam-Berlin research platform Geo.X will stage the Geo.X School "Methods in Geosciences" in the week before the conference: 28th September – 1st October 2015.
Alfred Wegener was born in Berlin. Hence it is timely that we review his hypotheses and their impact for our lives today in a stimulating geoscience meeting in Berlin. We are looking forward to welcome you here!
