On March 27-29, 2013 London's Natural History Museum (NHM) will host an
international, multi-disciplinary conference that brings together
researchers from across the geological, geophysical, and biological
disciplines to assess the state of research into the causes of mass
extinction events. The main goal of this conference will be to evaluate the
respective roles of volcanism, bolide impacts, sea level fluctuations and
associated climate and environmental changes in major episodes of species
extinction.
The conference website can be accessed at:
http://massextinction.princeton.edu/which includes information about the
technical programme, invited speakers, registration, and contact
information. This site also includes the conference's First Circular which
can be downloaded as a pdf file. On the site's home page you can register
for further circulars, indicate whether you're interested in contributing a
presentation and provide a preliminary title. Both oral and poster
presentations will be key parts of the conference.
Attendance at the conference is limited due to the size of the NHM
auditorium. So that the Organizing Committee can manage delegate numbers it
is important that those interested in attending the conference express that
interest by registering on the conference web site.
Previous conferences on this topic have generated considerable interest
among both the scientific community and the media. In addition to reviewing
the physical and biotic evidence, this conference will assess the present
status of data and interpretations bearing on different mass extinction
causal hypotheses. From this discussion/debate the conference will promote
a new, collaborative, interdisciplinary, community-wide approach to
resolving outstanding problems in the field of mass extinction studies. The
data and concepts presented and discussed in London will have broad
implications that will extend throughout, and well beyond, the geosciences
not the least because they will summarize the baseline data that will be
necessary for understanding both ancient and modern species extinction
events.
We look forward to seeing you in London in 2013 for this event.
For questions regarding this conference please contact: Gerta Keller
gkeller@princeton.edu or Norman MacLeod
N.MacLeod@nhm.ac.ukThe conference organizing committee is:
Gerta Keller Norman MacLeod, Andrew Kerr, Mike Widdowson, Vincent
Courtillot, Ashok Sahni, Thierry Adatte
