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.
Believe it or not, America has been fracking oil wells since right around the time of the Civil War. That said, modern oil well fracking didn’t start taking shape until the 1940s, and it wasn’t until the 1990s when it was combined with horizontal drilling to unleash the shale gas boom. The industry eventually transferred those two techniques into oil drilling when Continental Resources (NYSE:CLR) drilled the first commercially successful well in the North Dakota Bakken.
Here we show that Greenland was deglaciated for extended periods during the Pleistocene epoch (from 2.6 million years ago to 11,700 years ago), based on new measurements of cosmic-ray-produced beryllium and aluminium isotopes (10Be and 26Al) in a bedrock core from beneath an ice core near the GIS summit.
These analysis results would appear to leave very, very little doubt but that EPA’s claim of a Tropical Hot Spot (THS), caused by rising atmospheric CO2 levels, simply does not exist in the real world. Also critically important, even on an all-other-things- equal basis, this analysis failed to find that the steadily rising Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations have had a statistically significant impact on any of the 13 critically important temperature time series analyzed.
Methane is about 25 times stronger than carbon dioxide, with some estimates as high as 33 times stronger due to its effects when it is in the atmosphere.
Because of methane’s global warming potential, identifying the sources and “sinks” or storehouses of this greenhouse gas is critical for measuring and understanding its implications across ecosystems.
Daniel L. Warner, Samuel Villarreal, Kelsey McWilliams, Shreeram Inamdar, Rodrigo Vargas. Carbon Dioxide and Methane Fluxes From Tree Stems, Coarse Woody Debris, and Soils in an Upland Temperate Forest. Ecosystems, 2017; DOI: 10.1007/s10021-016-0106-8
Here we use a stacked temperature record to show an absence of regional warming since the late 1990s. The annual mean temperature has decreased at a statistically significant rate, with the most rapid cooling during the Austral summer. Temperatures have decreased as a consequence of a greater frequency of cold, east-to-southeasterly winds, resulting from more cyclonic conditions in the northern Weddell Sea associated with a strengthening mid-latitude jet.
In 2016, U.S. crude oil exports averaged 520,000 barrels per day (b/d), 55,000 b/d (12%) above the 2015 level, despite a year-over-year decline in domestic crude oil production. Even though oil exports have increased, growth in U.S. crude oil exports has slowed significantly from its pace from 2013 to 2015, when annual U.S. crude oil production grew rapidly.
Where the ground is stable, typical change appears to be a rise of 1- to 2-mm/y. Rates above 3 mm/y seem to have a substantial component of natural and/or anthropogenic subsidence. Rates above 10 mm/y appear to be a primarily a consequence of human activity, which implies they should be manageable to some degree.
All records in this review are from the website www.psmsl.org of the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level.
Using advanced modeling and simulation, seismic data generated by earthquakes, and one of the world’s fastest supercomputers, a team of scientists is creating a detailed 3-D picture of Earth’s interior. Currently, the team is focused on imaging the entire globe from the surface to the core-mantle boundary, a depth of 1,800 miles.
Hurricane’s prospects are located West of Shetland, an area that has promised much in terms of the 12 to 24 billion remaining barrels of oil equivalent (boe) said to be lurking on the UKCS. The GLA announcement represents a rare chink of light glistening in the murky waters of an industry at its lowest ebb since production began in the 1960s.
An unprecedented 21 different types of dinosaur tracks have been identified on a 25-kilometer stretch of the Dampier Peninsula coastline dubbed ‘Australia’s Jurassic Park.’ A team of paleontologists has unveiled the most diverse assemblage of dinosaur tracks in the world in 127 to 140 million-year-old rocks in the remote Kimberley region of Western Australia.
The heart of Europe’s gas market may finally get a helping hand from the American shale revolution as fuel is poised to cross the Atlantic to replenish depleted inventories after the coldest January in seven years.
The climate sensitivity due to CO2 is expressed as the temperature change in °C associated with a doubling of the concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere. The equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) refers to the equilibrium change in global mean near-surface air temperature that would result from a sustained doubling of the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. The transient climate response (TCR) is defined as the average temperature response over a twenty-year period centered at CO2 doubling in a transient simulation with CO2 increasing at 1% per year. The transient response is lower than the equilibrium sensitivity, due to the “inertia” of ocean heat uptake.
“[T]here is growing evidence of much smaller climate sensitivity to CO2; and even if these drastic emissions reductions occurred, we see little impact on the climate in the 21st century (even if you believe the climate models).”
A paper published in Paleoworld worries that a repeat of the greatest mass extinction event in Earth’s history could be triggered by Anthropogenic CO2. But Cambridge Professor Peter Wadhams, our favourite sea ice alarmist, thinks the attempt to link the Permian extinction to modern events is a bit wild.
During the past 100,000 years, human societies have witnessed the vast change in climate that has occurred as we have transitioned from a glacial period that ended about 20,000 years ago, into the current interglacial period.
A team of academics led by the University of Leicester has responded to criticisms of the proposal to formalise a new geological epoch – the Anthropocene.
Geological critics of a formalised Anthropocene have alleged that the idea did not arise from geology; that there is simply not enough physical evidence for it as strata; that it is based more on the future than on the past; that it is more a part of human history than the immensely long history of the Earth; and that it is a political statement, rather than a scientific one.
The most important parameter in determining the economic impact of climate change is the sensitivity of the climate to greenhouse gas emissions. Climatologist Nicholas Lewis used an energy balance method to calculate the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) best estimate at 1.45 °C. ECS is the global temperature change resulting from a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere after allowing the oceans to reach temperature equilibrium, which takes about 3000 years in the models.
A more policy-relevant parameter is the Transient Climate Response (TCR) which is the global temperature change at the time of the CO2 doubling. A doubling of CO2 at the current growth rate would take 126 years. The analysis gives the TCR best estimate at 1.21 °C with a likely range [17 – 83% confidence] of 1.05 to 1.45 °C.
Expert européen auprès de la DG Énergie de la Commission européenne
Maître de conférences à l’Université Libre de Bruxelles
2050, c’est dans 33 ans. Il y a 33 ans, nous étions en 1984, en plein contre-choc pétrolier. Après le tremblement du monde suite aux deux chocs pétroliers consécutifs provoqués par l’OPEP, le prix du pétrole était tombé si bas qu’aujourd’hui encore, tout nouveau contre-choc pétrolier constitue un épouvantail pour l’Arabie saoudite. Qu’est-ce qui avait permis cette contre-révolution et mis en échec la stratégie de l’OPEP ? Tout d’abord, l’abandon de la consommation de produits pétroliers dans les centrales électriques (à l’époque, le prix du brut était si bas que l’on pouvait se permettre le luxe de l’utiliser pour produire de l’électricité). La maturation de la technologie nucléaire et le développement de technologies modernes de combustion de charbon ont changé la donne. Ensuite, la mise en œuvre de technologies plus efficientes, notamment dans le secteur de l’automobile, avait donné lieu à des économies d’énergie qui ont permis de réduire la consommation de pétrole. Cela se résumait à l’époque par un slogan lancé par la Commission européenne : COCONUC pour « COal, COnservation and NUClear ». Les résultats ont été au rendez-vous et ont suscité un retour à la sérénité énergétique.
Firstly, how can reopening the Chukchi Sea and Beaufort Sea OCS areas to leasing be disrespectful to “market forces”? Opening up an area to leasing doesn’t somehow impose an obligation on oil companies to bid on leases in those areas.
A report on the State of the Climate in 2016 which is based exclusively on observations rather than climate models is published today by the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF).
Contents (37 pages)
1. General overview 2016/2. Spatial pattern of global surface air temperatures in 2016/3. Global monthly lower troposphere air temperatures since 1979/4. Global mean annual lower troposphere air temperatures since 1979 ……………………/17. Ocean temperature net change 2004-2016 in two north-south sectors/18. Pacific Decadal Oscillation…………../23. Global, Arctic and Antarctic sea-ice extent/24. Northern hemisphere snow-cover extent and /25 Links to data sources.
Dead zones affect dozens of coral reefs around the world and threaten hundreds more according to a new study. Watching a massive coral reef die-off on the Caribbean coast of Panama, they suspected it was caused by a dead zone — a low-oxygen area that snuffs out marine life — rather than by ocean warming or acidification.
Journal Reference: Andrew H. Altieri, Seamus B. Harrison, Janina Seemann, Rachel Collin, Robert J. Diaz, Nancy Knowlton. Tropical dead zones and mass mortalities on coral reefs. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2017; 201621517 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1621517114
Arsia Mons produced one new lava flow at its summit every 1 to 3 million years during the final peak of activity, about 50 million years ago. The last volcanic activity there ceased about 50 million years ago — around the time of Earth’s Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction, when large numbers of our planet’s plant and animal species (including dinosaurs) went extinct.
Journal Reference:Jacob A. Richardson, James A. Wilson, Charles B. Connor, Jacob E. Bleacher, Koji Kiyosugi. Recurrence rate and magma effusion rate for the latest volcanism on Arsia Mons, Mars. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 2017; 458: 170 DOI: 10.1016/j.epsl.2016.10.040
Third weakest solar cycle since 1755
A recent publication has analyzed the current solar cycle and has found that when sunspot anomalies are compared to the mean for the number of months after cycle start, there have been only two weaker cycles since observations began in 1755. Solar cycle 24 began in 2008 after a historically long and deep solar minimum which puts us more than eight years into the current cycle.
The greenhouse gasses keep the Earth 30° C warmer than it would otherwise be without them in the atmosphere, so instead of the average surface temperature being -15° C, it is 15° C. Carbon dioxide contributes 10% of the effect so that is 3° C. The pre-industrial level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 280 ppm. So roughly, if the heating effect was a linear relationship, each 100 ppm contributes 1° C. With the atmospheric concentration rising by 2 ppm annually, it would go up by 100 ppm every 50 years and we would all fry as per the IPCC predictions.
But the relationship isn’t linear, it is logarithmic. In 2006, Willis Eschenbach posted this graph on Climate Audit showing the logarithmic heating effect of carbon dioxide relative to atmospheric concentration
La géologie, une science plus que passionnante … et diverse
