The aim of Geobiology 2017 is to showcase the research of early career scientists. As such, the 3-day meeting will comprise 22 invited talks by assistant professors and post-doctoral fellows during the mornings, while afternoons will provide an opportunity for all registered graduate students and other post-doctoral fellows to present their work as posters. It is our intention to display all posters for the entire 3 days. At 5 pm on Monday and Wednesday there will be talks by the recipients of the Terry J. Beveridge Award (for mid-career scientist) and Robert M. Garrels Award (for senior scientist), respectively. On Tuesday at 5 pm we will run a point-counterpoint presentation on the topic of "Is animal evolution tied to oxygenation?", with the aim being to engage the broader audience in a lively debate.
Registration
Please register here to confirm your attendance by April 15, 2017. To support the Geobiology Society’s goal of promoting early career scientists, professors are strongly encouraged to bring at minimum one student or post-doctoral fellow. Geobiology 2017 has strived to offer the lowest possible registration possible for hosting an event in Banff. The registration costs will be $350 (CAD) for professors and $225 (CAD) for students and post-doctoral fellows. The registration fee includes: three lunches, coffee breaks, refreshments at the poster session, the icebreaker party and dinner on June 11, 2017, and a 2 year membership to the Geobiology Society. As one of the goals of this conference is to provide an opportunity for families to join us, we have also set aside funding for free transportation to nearby attractions, such as Banff hot springs, Lake Louise, and the Athabasca glacier.
Abstract Submission
All graduate students and post-doctoral fellows must submit an abstract here for the poster presentations by April 15, 2017. Professors can submit an abstract if they choose.
Abstracts should be no more than 300 words. All abstracts will then be formatted and bundled together into an online conference proceedings volume that will be made publicly available on both the conference website and the Geobiology Society website.
Posters
Posters should be no larger than 4’ tall x 3’ wide. Tape and thumbtacks will be provided. Please proceed to the hallways leading to the poster room (KC101/103/105) on the ground floor of the Kinnear Centre to set up your poster by 9 am. The boards will be numbered and you can hang your poster on the board corresponding to your poster number in the program, which will be provided later.
Schedule and Program
The conference will begin at 8:40 am on Monday June 12, 2017 in the auditorium of the Max Bell Building. Talks will begin at 9:00 am, followed by lunch at 12:30 pm, a breakout session for continued discussions of the morning talks in the main auditorium, while posters will start officially at 2 pm in the Kinnear Centre. Informal presentations on a variety of topics will be provided throughout the afternoons in the Max Bell Building. The work day concludes with awardee or counterpoint talks at 5 pm, after which we will break for dinner. Each evening there will be a venue in the town of Banff reserved for our conference.
| Sunday June 11 | Monday June 12 | Tuesday June 13 | Wednesday June 14 | ||||
| 8:45 | Introductory Words | ||||||
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THEME 1 - Metabolic Imprints on Surface Ecosystems chaired by Sharon Grim (University of Michigan) and Chloe Hart (University of Washington) |
THEME 3 - Geobiology at Interfaces chaired by Karen Johannessen (University of Bergen) and Konstantin von Gunten (University of Alberta) |
THEME 6 - Precambrian Redox Evolution chaired by Charlie Diamond (University of California Riverside) and Ian Foster (University of Brest) |
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| 9:00 | Talk 1 - Jennifer Glass (Georgia Institute of Technology) | 9:00 | Talk 1 - Daniel Alessi (University of Alberta) | 9:00 | Talk 1 - Kimberly Myers (Lamont/Texas A&M) | ||
| Ironing out the impact of mineral-microbe interactions on ancient atmospheres | Reactivity at biomineral surfaces: Processes and modelling | Arsenic(V) in 3,260-million-year-old cherts record a photosynthesis-driven arsenic cycle | |||||
| 9:30 | Talk 2 - Karen Lloyd (University of Tennessee) | 9:30 | Talk 2 - Cara Santelli (University of Minnesota) | 9:30 | Talk 2 - Eva Stüeken (St. Andrews University) | ||
| Geochemical evidence for genomic predictions in uncultured archaea and bacteria | Metal(loid) redox transformations and biomineralization by fungi | Antiquity and implications of microbial nitrogen metabolisms: A geochemical perspective | |||||
| 10:00 | Talk 3 - Douglas LaRowe (University of Southern California) | 10:00 | Talk 3 - Julia Perdrial (University of Vermont) | 10:00 | Talk 3 - Michael Babechuk (Memorial University of Newfoundland) | ||
| Marine sediments as microbial habitats on a global scale | Carbon dynamics from a Critical Zone perspective: Impact of molecular scale organic-inorganic interactions on the catchment scale | New evidence for anoxic weathering at ca. 2.45 Ga from the Cooper Lake paleosol | |||||
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THEME 2 - Modern Microbes as Portals to Ancient Worlds chaired by Emma Bertran (Harvard University) and Kate Thompson (University of British Columbia) |
THEME 4 - Depositional Environments and Geochemical Signals chaired by Dalton Leprich (University of Minnesota) and Xolane Mhlanga (Rhodes University) |
THEME 7 - Phanerozoic Earth-Life Transitions chaired by Devon Cole (Yale University) and Joyce Yager (University of Southern California) |
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| 11:00 | Talk 4 - Trinity Hamilton (University of Cincinnati) | 11:00 | Talk 4 - Emmy Smith (Johns Hopkins University) | 11:00 | Talk 4 - Lidya Tarhan (Yale University) | ||
| Cyanobacterial photosynthesis under sulfidic conditions in a Proterozoic-analog sinkhole | The Precambrian-Cambrian boundary in the Southwest USA | Development of bioturbation and implications for early Palaeozoic biogeochemical cycling | |||||
| 11:30 | Talk 5 - Mirna Daye (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) | 11:30 | Talk 5 - Jon Husson (University of Victoria) | 11:30 | Talk 5 - Kathleen Ritterbush (University of Utah) | ||
| Light driven anaerobic oxidation of manganese in cultures of oxygenic photosynthetic microbes | From basin to crystal: Constraining the origin of Earth’s largest carbon isotope excursion | Successful slackers in ancient oceans | |||||
| 12:00 | Talk 6 - Xinning Zhang (Princeton University) | 12:00 | Talk 6 - Clara Blättler (Princeton University) | 12:00 | Talk 6 - Katja Meyer (Willamette University) | ||
| Isotopic insights of nitrogen fixation in the lab and field | Tests for diagenesis and carbonate chemistry in ancient carbonate rocks | The influence of the biological pump on marine redox conditions | |||||
| 12:30 | Lunch | 12:30 | Lunch | 12:30 | Lunch | ||
| 1:30 | Breakout Session From Morning Talks (MB auditorium) | 1:30 | Breakout Session From Morning Talks (MB auditorium) | 1:30 | Breakout Session From Morning Talks (MB auditorium) | ||
| 1:30 | Bach Duong from Metrohom (MB 252) | 1:30 | Chuck Douthitt from Thermo-Fisher Scientific (MB 252) | ||||
| Hyphenated ion chromatography techniques: Pushing the boundaries of IC-ICP-MS and combustion IC |
THEME 5 - Precambrian Oxygenation chaired by Peter Crockford (McGill University) and Kathryn Rico (University of Michigan) |
EA-IRMS : Redesigning the combustion elemental analyzer around modern chromatographic principles | |||||
| 2:00-5:00 | Student Posters (Kinear Centre) | 2:00 | Talk 7 - Greg Fournier (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) | 2:00-5:00 | Student Posters (Kinear Centre) | ||
| Dating the origin and diversification of cyanobacteria | |||||||
| 2:30 | Tiffany Lancaster from NSERC (MB auditorium) | 2:30 | Talk 8 - James Hemp (California Institute of Technology) | 2:30 | Enriqueta Barrera from NSF (MB auditorium) | ||
| Being successful at NSERC Discovery Funding | New constraints on the evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis | Funding opportunities for Geobiology | |||||
| 3:00 | Talk 9 - Stefan Lalonde (University of Brest) | ||||||
| Geological evidence for the origin of oxygenic photosynthesis | |||||||
| 3:30 | Clint Walker and Jason Dunbar from Agilent Technologies (MB 252) | 3:30 | Talk 10 - Tom Laakso (Harvard University) | ||||
| Lastest developments for trace metal analysis in geochemistry/geobiology using ICP-MS/MS | Oxygen dynamics during global glaciation | ||||||
| 6:00 | Welcome Icebreaker | 5:00 | T.J. Beveridge Award Talk | 5:00 | Point-Counterpoint Talk | 5:00 | R.M. Garrels Award Talk |
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Sara Pruss (Smith College) Geobiological windows into Earth history: Tales of the Triassic, Cambrian and Neoproterozoic |
Is animal evolution tied to oxygenation? Eric Sperling (Stanford University) Chris Reinhard (Georgia Institute of Technology) Daniel Mills (University of Southern Denmark) |
Lee Kump (Penn State) Life’s role in environmental regulation |
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| 7:30 | BBQ on site | 7:00 | Dinner/Drinks in Banff | 7:00 | Dinner/Drinks in Banff | 7:00 | Dinner/Drinks in Banff |