Full-time professor at the Free University of Brussels, Belgium
apreat@gmail.com
apreat@ulb.ac.be
• Department of Earth Sciences and Environment
Res. Grp. - Biogeochemistry & Modeling of the Earth System
Sedimentology & Basin Analysis
• Alumnus, Collège des Alumni, Académie Royale de Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux Arts de Belgique (mars 2013). http://www.academieroyale.be/cgi?usr=2a8crwkksq&lg=fr&pag=858&rec=0&frm=0&par=aybabtu&id=4471&flux=8365323
• Prof. Invited, Université de Mons-Hainaut (2010-present-day)
• Prof. Coordinator and invited to the Royal Academy of Sciences of Belgium (Belgian College) (2009-
present day)
• Prof. partim to the DEA (third cycle) led by the University of Lille (9 universities from 1999 to 2004) - Prof. partim at the University of Paris-Sud/Orsay, European-Socrates Agreement (1995-1998)
• Prof. partim at the University of Louvain, Convention ULB-UCL (1993-2000)
• Since 2015 : Member of Comité éditorial de la Revue Géologie de la France http://geolfrance.brgm.fr
• Since 2014 : Regular author of texts for ‘la Revue Science et Pseudosciences’ http://www.pseudo-sciences.org/
• Many field works (several weeks to 2 months) (Meso- and Paleozoic carbonates, Paleo- to Neoproterozoic carbonates) in Europe, USA (Nevada), Papouasia (Holocene), North Africa (Algeria, Morrocco, Tunisia), West Africa (Gabon, DRC, Congo-Brazzaville, South Africa, Angola), Iraq... Recently : field works (3 to 5 weeks) Congo- Brazzaville 2012, 2015, 2016 (carbonate Neoproterozoic).
Degree in geological sciences at the Free University of Brussels (ULB) in 1974, I went to Algeria for two years teaching mining geology at the University of Constantine. Back in Belgium I worked for two years as an expert for the EEC (European Commission), first on the prospecting of Pb and Zn in carbonate environments, then the uranium exploration in Belgium. Then Assistant at ULB, Department of Geology I got the degree of Doctor of Sciences (Geology) in 1985. My thesis, devoted to the study of the Devonian carbonate sedimentology of northern France and southern Belgium, comprised a significant portion of field work whose interpretation and synthesis conducted to the establishment of model of carbonate platforms and ramps with reefal constructions.
I then worked for Petrofina SA and shared a little more than two years in Angola as Director of the Research Laboratory of this oil company. The lab included 22 people (micropaleontology, sedimentology, petrophysics). My main activity was to interpret facies reservoirs from drillings in the Cretaceous, sometimes in the Tertiary. I carried out many studies for oil companies operating in this country.
I returned to the ULB in 1988 as First Assistant and was appointed Professor in 1990. I carried out various missions for mining companies in Belgium and oil companies abroad and continued research, particularly through projects of the Scientific Research National Funds (FNRS).
My research still concerns sedimentology, geochemistry and diagenesis of carbonate rocks which leads me to travel many countries in Europe or outside Europe, North Africa, Papua New Guinea and the USA, to conduct field missions.
Since the late 90's, I expanded my field of research in addressing the problem of mass extinctions of organisms from the Upper Devonian series across Euramerica (from North America to Poland) and I also specialized in microbiological and geochemical analyses of ancient carbonate series developing a sustained collaboration with biologists of my university. We are at the origin of a paleoecological model based on the presence of iron-bacterial microfossils, which led me to travel many countries in Europe and North Africa. This model accounts for the red pigmentation of many marble and ornamental stones used in the world. This research also has implications on the emergence of Life from the earliest stages of formation of Earth, as well as in the field of exobiology or extraterrestrial life ...
More recently I invested in the study from the Precambrian series of Gabon and Congo. These works with colleagues from BRGM (Orléans) are as much about the academic side (consequences of the appearance of oxygen in the Paleoproterozoic and study of Neoproterozoic glaciations) that the potential applications in reservoir rocks and source rocks of oil (in collaboration with oil companies).
Finally I recently established a close collaboration with the Royal Institute of Natural Sciences of Belgium to study the susceptibility magnetic signal from various European Paleozoic series. All these works allowed me to gain a thorough understanding of carbonate rocks (petrology, micropaleontology, geobiology, geochemistry, sequence stratigraphy, diagenesis) as well in Precambrian (2.2 Ga and 0.6 Ga), Paleozoic (from Silurian to Carboniferous) and Mesozoic (Jurassic and Cretaceous) rocks. Recently (2010) I have established a collaboration with Iraqi Kurdistan as part of a government program to boost scientific research in this country.
My research led me to publish about 180 papers in international and national journals and presented more than 170 conference papers. I am a holder of eight courses at the ULB (5 mandatory and 3 optional), excursions and field stages, I taught at the third cycle in several French universities and led or co-managed a score of 20 Doctoral (PhD) and Post-doctoral theses and has been the promotor of more than 50 Masters theses.
I have written about sea level rise here: here, here, here, here and here. The previous essays are not prerequisites but are interesting specific examples.
There are two important points which readers must be aware of from the first mention of SLR:
SLR is a real imminent threat to coastal cities and low-lying coastal and near-coastal densely-populated areas.
SLR is not a threat to anything else — not now, not in a hundred years — probably not in a thousand years — maybe, not ever.
The international team, including palaeontologist from The University of Manchester, found a new set of trace fossils left by some of the first ever organisms capable of active movement. Trace fossils are the tracks and burrows left by living organisms, not physical remains such as bones or body parts.
While the United States gears up for what is expected to be a record-breaking production year in 2018, the rest of the world remains far away from catching up to America’s runaway shale success. But while the U.S. may be the only country producing commercially significant volumes of shale today, it’s not the only one with sizable shale reserves—according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Argentina, Algeria, and China all have more shale gas than the United States, and Russia has nearly as much tight oil
by Paul Homewood, September 1, 2017 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat
Since 1851, there have been 14 stronger hurricanes at landfall, and Irma ties with 10 others. In other words, Irma is one of 25 hurricanes as strong or stronger.
Le cyclone Irma qui a dévasté Saint-Martin et Saint-Barthélémy dans les Antilles françaises a servi de prétexte à de nombreux commentateurs et journalistes pour en remettre une couche sur les “dérèglements climatiques d’origine humaine”. Comme d’habitude, les vagues éléments de prudence rappelant qu’on ne peut tirer de conclusions d’un élément isolé ont vite été noyés par les “appels à l’action” et l’invocation de l’Accord de Paris de 2015.
Or s’agissant du climat aux Antilles l’année 2015 a été importante pour une toute autre raison que la signature de l’Accord de Paris : c’est l’année de publication d’un article de recherche tout à fait passionnant sur les ouragans dans cette région du monde.
This modern rate – just 0.17-0.18 of a meter per century –has remained relatively unchanged from the overall 20th century average, and there has been no statistically significant acceleration in the sea level rise rate (just 0.0042 mm/yr-²) since 1900.
by Paul Homewood, September 7, 2017 in ClimateChangeDispatch
(…)
In other words, there have now been four hurricanes as strong or stronger since 1980, about one every decade, and certainly nothing like the “unprecedented” impression left by the headlines.
And as we know, prior to Allen in 1980, we had very little in the way of measurements in mid-ocean.
A closer look at the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, widely acknowledged to be by far the most powerful storm to hit the US, emphasizes this fact.
Don’t hold your breath: Even the best meteorologists in the world weren’t able to predict the development and track of Hurricane Harvey until a few days before it hit. (…)
Weather and climate analyst Schneefan here writes of “early frost” in the Arctic and how Greenland snow and ice have grown after being hit by a “snow bomb”. This contradicts the expectations of global warming alarmists.
The polar summer this year appears to have ended prematurely. The mean temperature of the central Arctic above 80°N has remained under the long-term average over the entire summer and even dipped below the freezing point about a week earlier than normal (1958-2002 mean).
Il se produit en moyenne 300 catastrophes naturelles par an, soit presque une par jour ; nous en sommes informés en temps réel et la responsabilité du réchauffement est presque systématiquement invoquée. Il se diffuse ainsi dans l’opinion l’idée d’un dérèglement climatique qui irait en s’accentuant sous l’effet du réchauffement. Les différentes sources de données exploitées dans cet article sont convergentes : il n’y a pas d’augmentation de la fréquence , de l’intensité et de la durée des événements extrêmes depuis le début de l’ère industrielle, qu’il s’agisse des cyclones et des tempêtes, des inondations, des sécheresses et des vagues de chaleur . Cela est d’ailleurs admis par le GIEC dans son rapport spécial sur les événements extrêmes de 2012, et dans son 5ème rapport d’évaluation de 2013.
We describe late Miocene tetrapod footprints (tracks) from the Trachilos locality in western Crete (Greece), which show hominin-like characteristics. They occur in an emergent horizon within an otherwise marginal marine succession of Messinian age (latest Miocene), dated to approximately 5.7 Ma (million years), just prior to the Messinian Salinity Crisis.
As the Houston flood disaster is unfolding, there is considerable debate about whether Hurricane Harvey was influenced by “global warming”. While such an issue matters little to the people of Houston, it does matter for our future infrastructure planning and energy policy.
Let’s review the two basic reasons why the Houston area is experiencing what now looks like a new record amount of total rainfall, at least for a 2-3 day period over an area of tens of thousands of square miles.
Various sources, scientists publishing their opinion in the media, claim that Tropical Storm Harvey, recently landed in Texas, is one more signal of the influence of global warming on such catastrophic events. These claims are based on model calculations. Let’s examine the facts.
This report introduces CDP’s League Table for oil and gas companies, highlighting company performance across a range of portfolio, emissions and water-related metrics which indicate carbon risk preparedness and highlights earnings risks for oil and gas companies.
Highest ranked companies are Statoil, Eni and Total.
Lowest ranked companies are Suncor, ExxonMobil and Chevron.
Canada’s tar sands, which contain the planet’s third-largest oil reserves, were a prized possession for global energy companies when crude was trading above $100 a barrel. But since prices fell to $50 in 2015, where they have lingered, Royal Dutch Shell, ConocoPhillips, and Marathon Oil have unloaded their holdings amid concerns that these capital-intensive projects would struggle to turn a profit.
(…) In recent earnings announcements, Suncor and rival Cenovus Energy Inc. said they can now sustain production with oil at $40 a barrel without jeopardizing the dividend they pay shareholders.
In the press release for a newly published and controversial peer-reviewed scientific paper, Australian scientist Dr. Jennifer Marohasy unveiled one of climate science’s better-kept secrets.
She and her colleagues are well aware that the post-1940s Northern Hemisphere (NH) proxy evidence from tree-rings, bore holes, pollen, etc., consistently fails to affirm sharply rising temperatures from the late 20th century onwards.
Since 2005, the U.S. has added more than 120,000 gas wells, mainly in Texas, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma and Colorado. In 2015, there were 555,000 in total.
Those onshore wells have not just made up for declining offshore production, they have handily exceeded it. Offshore gas is now only 4 percent of total U.S. withdrawals. Texas, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma and Colorado are 53 percent of all production.
Way back in February, Global Weather Oscillations (GWO) veteran meteorologist David Dilley predicted that the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season would be “the most dangerous and costliest in 12 years for the United States.” (…)
by Paul Homewood, September 2, 207 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat
Indeed, it could be that the last 20-years of temperature recordings by the Bureau will be found not fit for purpose, and will eventually need to be discarded. This would make for a rather large hole in the calculation of global warming – given the size of Australia.
Changes in the sources of nitrogen and the composition of the phytoplankton community are more likely to account for the differences seen in the isotope data, Huckstadt said. “It looks more like a shift at the base of the food web, probably related to the transition from the Little Ice Age to current conditions, causing changes in the phytoplankton community,” he said.
See also: “Here we present new data from the Ross Sea, Antarctica, that indicates surface temperatures were ~ 2 °C colder during the LIA, with colder sea surface temperatures in the Southern Ocean and/or increased sea-ice extent, stronger katabatic winds, and decreased snow accumulation.”
Dans la lutte que mènent nos villes contre la pollution urbaine, on perçoit la recherche désespérée de solutions alternatives aux véhicules conventionnels. C’est le cas en particulier pour les particules fines, même s’il est de bon ton de passer sous silence que le chauffage contribue aussi largement à cette pollution….
