Are Earth's oceans suffocating?

Oceans cover 71% of our Earth. Formed over 3.8 billion years ago, these vast depths could hold some of the answers to our questions about Earth’s long and mysterious history, as well as offer predictions for the future of our planet. And the key might be found in, of all places, rocks.   

On this episode of Access to Excellence, President Washington speaks with Geoffrey Gilleaudeau, associate professor in the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Earth Sciences Department in the College of Science, about the past, present, and future of Earth’s oceans according to the physical and chemical characteristics of sedimentary rocks. 

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
Trailblazers in research;innovators in technology;
and those who simply have a good story:
all make up the fabric thatis George Mason University,
where taking on the grand challengesthat face our students graduates in
higher education is ourmission and our passion.
Hosted by Mason PresidentGregory Washington,
this is the Access to Excellence podcast.

(00:27):
71% Of our Earth is covered by ocean
formed over 3.8 billion years ago.
These vast depths could hold someof the answers to our questions
about the Earth's longand mysterious history,
as well as offer predictionsfor the future of our planet.

(00:49):
And the key might be found,in of all places, rocks.
It sounds like we'rein need of a geologist.
Geoffrey Gilleaudeau is anassociate professor in the Department of Atmospheric,
Oceanic and Earth Sciencesin the College of Science.
He specializes in the physicaland chemical characteristics of

(01:11):
sedimentary rocks.
His research focuses onthe evolution of ocean
atmosphere, chemistry,
and its effect on biologicaldevelopment throughout Earth's history.
Geoffrey, welcome to the show.
Thank you very much, president.
So one of your areas of study is,

(01:34):
and I don't wanna screw thisup, , the Proterozoic.
Yeah. Proterozoic, right.
The Proterozoic world AKA,
the geological age in which theearliest forms of complex right.
Life began to take shape.
So what criteria do scientists useto define complex life, number one,

(01:54):
and why is it important to define it?
And then we'll talk a little bit aboutwhat these complex life forms are.
Yeah, sure.
So we think of all life on Earth asbelonging to three different domains:
bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes andeukaryotes are special because that,
uh, they---we're eukaryotes and,and our cells have a nucleus,
that's a fundamentally morecomplex organization of life than exists in bacteria

(02:19):
or exists in archaea. So eukaryotes, uh,
first evolved during theProterozoic. Bacteria, uh,
we know were around way back 3billion years or, or earlier,
but eukaryotes onlyevolved in the Proterozoic.
And then in particular when we havethings like algae that are single-cell
eukaryotes, but we also havemulticellular eukaryotes, right?

(02:41):
So the first really multicellulareukaryotes that seem to have, you know,
more of a complex set of, uh,
organization also occur towardthe very end of the Proterozoic.
And yeah, a big question for along time has been, you know,
why was there such a long delay betweenthe first evolution of bacteria and then
finally having something complex thatwe can actually see as a fossil and is

(03:04):
made up of eukaryotes with, witha complex biological structure.
So non-complex life arelike simple bacteria.
Yeah, exactly. Bacteriaand what we call archaea,
which are another singlecell type of life.
Right. But at some point in time, youshift to more complex life. Right.
Okay. So gimme the understanding ofwhere those lines occur and how does it

(03:28):
relate to what many of uswould call complex life?
Yeah, great question.
So the first time that we see evidencein the fossil record of a eukaryote,
an organism that has a nucleus,
is around 1.7 billion years ago,
which is kind of a arbitrarynumber, but, um, but the, as I said,
the Earth is four and ahalf billion years old.

(03:50):
So that's already more than half throughEarth history before we see the first
eukaryote, that, uh, an organismwith a nucleus. Right. And then we,
we see various kinds of,sometimes multicellular,
but still simple eukaryotes forthe next billion years or so.
And it's not until really thefinal 10% of our planet's history

(04:11):
that we start to see fossils of thingsthat we would recognize like an animal.
And it's only around five or six hundredmillion years ago that we start to see
fossils of things that werecognize as animal phyla. Right.
Wait, is this post dinosaur or pre--
Pre dinosaur. Yeah. And if you thinkabout dinosaurs, right? Again, it's like,
are interesting to putthis all in perspective,

(04:32):
when our planet is four and ahalf billion years old, right?
Dinosaurs were around something likea hundred million years ago up to 66
million years ago. So that's onlyoccurring in like the last 1%, you know,
of our planet's history,um, are those things that,
that we sort of recognize and learnabout when we're kids even, you know,

(04:54):
the most simple thing like a jellyfishor a sponge is only really showing up
in our fossil record in kind of thelast 10% of our planet's history.
That's amazing.
Yeah. .
So for that 90%,
it was all simple life or no life.
Yeah. I mean, so that,
that's really interesting because theoldest rocks we have on Earth that go

(05:16):
back, uh,
3.8 billion years already haveevidence for life in them.
So we think that that simplelife like bacteria evolved
very early in our planet's history,
probably more than 4 billion yearsago when the Earth was very young.
So life has been around the whole time,and we have evidence for, you know,

(05:36):
ubiquitous bacteria andsimple life through Earth history. But it's not that we,
you know, we get something thatwe would recognize as an animal.
That comes very late.
And so why did it take so long?
Yeah, that's been a,
a question that like when I was anundergrad really motivated me. Uh,
I learned about that ata paleobiology class.
It really struck my interest and I'vereally dedicated a lot of my career to

(05:59):
trying to understand that. One of thebig things that I study is oxygen, right?
One of the things that we know is thatbacteria can do their metabolism based on
many other chemical compounds, and theydon't necessarily need oxygen, right?
But we know that us, as complex life, weneed to breathe. And we also know that,
um, the process that we do calledaerobic respiration, where we use,

(06:22):
where we use oxygen in our metabolism,
is the most energeticallyefficient metabolism,
and it's probably required tohave any type of complex life.
So a lot of my research hasbeen in looking at the levels of
oxygen in the ocean and atmosphereover the course of Earth history.

(06:42):
So yeah,
one idea is that oxygen levels remainedquite low through most of our planet's
history and only rose, uh,to sufficient levels at,
at a later time.
We've been investigating that and we'refinding that it's not quite that simple
actually.
And there there are many other thingsabout the Earth's biogeochemistry that
really matter, like nutrientlevels in the oceans. For example,

(07:04):
we have evidence that thingslike phosphorus, which all life needs, was very,
at very low levels in the oceans formuch of our planet's history and other
nutrients like nitratemay have been important.
Another thing that's really important isactually how our planet behaves as far
as the plate tectonics andits physical structure.
It's actually interesting that we'relearning more and more that we may not

(07:28):
think that having mountains really mattersfor life. But mountains are really,
really important. And having activeand vigorous plate tectonics,
which constantly creates new mountainsand exposes new rocks to weathering,
putting nutrients into the oceanis really, really important.
And we're actually finding that thereare linkages between times of really

(07:48):
intense plate tectonics and weatheringthat are linked to some of these early
forms of complex life. So it's acomplicated picture, but it's, uh,
the Earth is sort of working in tandem.
And what I'm really interested in islike kind of the biogeochemical feedbacks
that, that have led us to thispoint. So, um, yeah, I think oxygen,
it plays a big role, but alsotectonics and nutrients for sure.

(08:10):
So one of your areas of studyis this Toarcian Oceanic
Anoxic Event, or T-OAE. Okay.
Explain what the T-OAE,
is that how it'spronounced:T dash O A E or.
Is it Yeah, the, the TOAE exactly. Yeah.
The TOEA.
. Okay. Yeah. I mean,

(08:31):
this is now moving forward a little bitin our Earth, in our planet's history,
actually to the time that you mentionedof the dinosaurs around 180 million
years ago or so. And during this time,
something happened where we alreadyhad a lot of oxygen in the oceans and
atmosphere at that time, complexlife was really vibrant on Earth,
but there was a short term event wherewe had something called a large igneous

(08:54):
province.
And basically what that means is thatvolcanoes kind of went crazy for a little
while, and we had, uh, alot of input of volcanoes,
a lot of volcanic eruptions, uh, overa relatively short amount of time.
And what that did is it put a lotof carbon into the atmosphere.
It put a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere,
and it caused a cascade of effectswhere what that did was enhance the

(09:18):
weather and hydrological cycle, whichthen ultimately led to warmer conditions,
more rainfall, which then led tointense weathering of the rocks on,
on land, which then led to a lotof nutrients going into the ocean.
And when that happens, it can havea detrimental effect on the oceans,
where basically those nutrients causelike harmful algal blooms and algae will,

(09:41):
will produce, you know, lots of organicmatter. And when that sinks down,
it uses up the oxygen choke. So what.
It chokes out, chokes everything out.
It chokes the---everything out, yeah.
And basically what happenedat that time is what,
what you said it caused anoceanic anoxic event or a loss of
oxygen from the oceans. Um, and thiswas something that caused, you know,

(10:02):
a, a relatively minor extinctionof life in the oceans at this time.
So this is really, reallyimportant because, um,
this provides us as a potential analogfor what's potentially happening now with
global warming. Um, we,
we have a very clear signal from thegeological record that times when lots of
carbon is put out into theatmosphere relatively rapidly,

(10:25):
that can have very detrimentaleffects on the oceans.
This is actually quite fascinating.
So you're basically studyingthe history of the early
formation of Earth?
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
I mean, I, I, I think that's onegood way to kind of look at it. And,
and in learning thathistory of how it formed,

(10:47):
you also run into an understandingof the kinds of things
that could cause it to decay.
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I thinkone of the things that's so, uh,
important is that, you know, as I said,
the Earth is four and ahalf billion years old,
but humans have been around a veryshort amount of time, right, um,
in respect to our planet's history.And we've only been keeping records,

(11:09):
you know, detailed records fora very short amount of time,
maybe 150 years or something like that.So, you know, we don't really have a,
a great understanding based on directobservations of basic things about how our
planet works on longer timescales.We haven't been around to see it,
so we need to look at the recordof the past to have a really,
a fundamental understanding of like,

(11:31):
how has the Earth responded toclimate change in the past? You know,
what's going to happenin the future? Because,
because we need to look to the past to,
to get that information that's gonna makea basic prediction about what the next
century is gonna look like.
Well, and this is a hypothetical,
there was a time when the planetwas a much less hospitable place.

(11:51):
Yeah.
Right?
Absolutely.
And you can reach back intothat time and have an idea
of what the conditions were like, whatthe conditions of the oceans were like,
what the conditions of the atmospherewas like. So in your opinion, are,
are we doing anything thatcould take us back to that

(12:13):
less hospitable time?
Yeah, I mean, I think, I think we are,and I think it's pretty clear. I mean,
I think that one of the thingsthat's really important to note, um,
is that the Earth has been muchwarmer at times in the past, um,
over the course of ourplanet's entire history.
We're actually in a relativelycold interval right now.
But the thing that matters is actuallythe rate of change and the rate at which

(12:37):
ecosystems can adapt to climatechange. Right? So we, we have a,
a clear understanding from the geologicalrecord that rapid periods of climate
change have wreaked havocon global ecosystems.
And what's happening now is, you know, a,
a rate of increase ofcarbon in the atmosphere,
a rate of increase of temperature thatis off the charts compared to what's

(12:57):
happened naturally in the, in thepast, right? So we're seeing, um,
lots of different detrimentaleffects already occurring, you know,
focused on ocean oxygen levels.We're already seeing a decrease.
I've heard about dead spots. Areas--
Exactly. Yeah.
Where there's just a lack of oxygen.
Right? And, and,
and one of the big things that we havehere locally is that's happening in the

(13:18):
Chesapeake Bay, for example.And that's related to, you know,
the same thing that volcanoes did 180million years ago is kind of happening
again today. And,
and one of the other thingsthat's happening is because of the way that humans
are using the land surface, um,
we're using a lot of artificialfertilizers and things like that,
we're clear cutting forests,
and that's causing more nutrients to runoff into the oceans and causing this,

these dead sites (13:42):
algal blooms, dead zones.
So we've got increasing levels of,
of lack of oxygen in theChesapeake Bay every summer. Uh,
it's getting worse and worse.
You know, just from a simplisticperspective, if, you know,
the algal blooms are taking away the
oxygen and causing the dead zone,as you see them start to bloom,

(14:04):
why not just go in, eradicate thebloom, right? Just get rid of it,
develop systems to capturethat and then go release
it somewhere else or process it.
Maybe there's something useful thatyou can pull out of that life form,
right?
Yeah, absolutely. I mean,
there's a lot of very interesting andimportant research being done on those

(14:27):
types of sort of what we would callgeo-engineering type strategies, right?
Where we would, you know,
find artificial ways to cause theoceans to absorb more carbon or
try and change the, the ecosystembalance of the oceans in our favor.
The problem with that is that,you know, the ocean is a really,
really complex thing.
And we up until today don't reallyhave a good understanding of

(14:51):
what some of the detrimental,maybe unintended,
consequences or side effects of someof those proposals would be. Right.
Wait, so so you're saying, okay, yougo in and you destroy the algal bloom,
and you get an outcome that's worse.
Exactly. Yeah.
Now, some of these oceans have recoveredfrom, uh, these dead zones, right?

(15:13):
Right.
And so that's, that's another thing.
How do the oceans naturallyrecover from dead zone?
Yeah, I mean, what we're, whatwe're finding is that really it's,
it's humans changing theway that we use the land.
And there are other partsof the Chesapeake Bay that have really improved in
recent years, and there are other areasthat dead zones are getting better.
And that has come about because, becausepeople have put policies in place to,

(15:37):
um, really limit the amount of nutrientsthat are running off into those areas.
So they've been, you know,
really success stories of positivepolicies that have been put into place to
figuring out what the cause is,and then trying to mitigate that,
that negative thing.
Probably about, I want tosay maybe nine months ago,
I took an extensive tripthrough the Anacostia.

(15:57):
Oh, cool.
And, you know, just uh,environmental excursions.
Yeah. Fun.
From what they call it.
And they talked about how runofffrom development and the, like,
basically caused someof the similar kinds.
And you get sediment that ran intothe Anacostia. In Its case, you,
you had that matter comingin and it added on the,

(16:19):
the riverbed and itdecreased the depth. Right.
Right.
So you could no longer get.
Yes, Exactly.
Yeah. You could no longer getbig ships down in and out, right?
Because basically,
and I was surprised to see howshallow it had become because
of all of that runoff.
And they say the runoff primarilycame because the vegetation that

(16:44):
existed all around the Anacostia wasremoved And that provided a pathway
for all of this matter tomake its way into the ocean.
Yeah. I mean, that, that's, that'sa, that's a great observation.
That's exactly the type ofprocess that we are seeing.
But, you know, and, and so youcan dredge, right? Or you can, uh,
uh Right. But when youdredge, it's a temporary fix.

(17:05):
Exactly. Yeah.
You dredge, but if you hadn'tfixed a vegetation issue.
Then guess what happens overtime? It just runs back in.
And, and those starts to fill itselfback up, right? But if you replant...
Right.
You can slow that process. Sothen you dredge, then you replant,
and that replanting slowsthat process down. And,

(17:28):
and then they put certainwildlife, uh, I think clams or mu,
I can't remember which ones thatactually have the effect of cleaning the
impurities out of the water.
Right? Yeah, absolutely.
And, and, and now you canactually now swim in it again.
Right, right, right. And things likethat have been a huge success stories.
Absolutely.
And so my philosophy is, okay, so you,

(17:49):
you've seen some thingswork, right? To me,
that's kind of the benefit ofthe work in which we do here.
Yeah, absolutely.
Right. We get an understanding,you understand the solutions, and then you say,
okay,
we can argue about the politicalramifications of what causes this or that,
or that,
or we can develop pathways to fixing it.

(18:14):
'Cause in the end, everybodywants clean water. You know,
people wanna swim inthe Anacostia, you know,
some folk drinkingAnacostia water. You know,
people want to do those kinds ofthings. Yeah. And in order to do that,
the water has gotta be clean.
Yeah, I agree.
And, and so how do you take what you do,
and the knowledge thatyou've been able to gain and

(18:38):
extend it to problems like that, right.
Because you're basically gainingan understanding of what causes the
development of life andwhat can cause its erosion.
Yeah, definitely.
Right? And so somewhere in that pathway,
if we're moving in thewrong direction, right,
you're not moving towardsdevelopment fast enough,

(19:00):
or we're moving towards deterioration,
putting in place mechanismsto thwart it and send
it the other direction to me, seemedto be incredibly helpful. What do you,
what are your thoughts about that?
No, I think that's allreally, really interesting.
And I think that the story about theAnacostia is really powerful because,

(19:21):
you know, that was us being ableto enact positive change, uh,
through actually scientific research. Um,
and actually getting clear scientificunderstanding of what is causing this
issue in the, in the watershed. Right.
And then how can we actually havesort of practical solutions, right?
So I think that, you know,in my view, right, uh,
in what I do thinking about thingsfrom millions of years ago, right?

(19:44):
It's also important for us to thinkabout the recovery of these time periods
where there were, you know,
negative impacts on life orextinctions or things like that. Right?
What happened during therecovery that, for example,
we had a major mass extinction,
or the biggest mass extinction in Earthhistory that happened about 252 million
years ago. Um, also becauseof these volcanic eruptions,

(20:07):
but the oceans remained toxicfor millions of years afterwards.
And there were a, a sort of series offeedbacks that were working to understand,
to try and understand why it took solong for the ecosystems to recover.
But then there are other, uh, timesin Earth history, for example,
like this toarcian eventthat I was talking about,
that it seems to be a relative blip,and things sort of came back, um,

(20:28):
more quickly, right?
So trying to understand that recoveryinterval in the geologic past is really,
really important, right.
Because we have learned things like manyof the things that are causing problems
in the Anacostia River,
the same thing happened in theoceans 252 million years ago. Right?
There were these volcaniceruptions, for example,
there could have been wildfires thatcleared vegetation that then led to more

(20:51):
erosion, more nutrients, morealgal blooms and things like that.
So just knowing that thathappened 252 million years ago,
and knowing Right. Isolatingthe effect of saying, wow,
the loss of vegetation at that timewas really detrimental in this way,
leads us exactly to whatyou said of saying, huh,
maybe we should replantthe vegetation. Right?

(21:12):
That's like totally comes from ourunderstanding of these past events, right?
So we can look at, um, the way thatthe Earth has recovered in the past,
what timescale it takes for the Earthto recover from carbon emissions
and things like that, to understandlike, what are the pathways that,
that the Earth kind of needsfor that type of recovery?
This is cool.

(21:32):
Yeah!
Because you're kind ofleading me into this
whole framework that we've been tryingto put together here at Mason. Right?
It's that Grand ChallengeInitiative, right? And,
and our Grand Challenge Initiative,
there's a focus onresearch on how to build an
environmentally and ecologicallyresilient society. Right.

(21:55):
It's one of thosechallenges, right? Right.
It's a challenge that recognizesthat something might be amiss here.
Something is going sidewayshere relative to how we are
treating the planet and the outcomesthat we're getting from nature,
so to speak.
And how do you makeourselves resilient to being

(22:19):
able to slow down those negativeprocesses or reverse them.
And areas like yours and the workthat you're doing is actually critical
to that. I believe, I personally believe,
that we are at a inflection point where
we have to start developing solutions.
and we have to startdeveloping them fast. And,

(22:42):
and my philosophy is we don't wantto get to a point where one of the
things I heard you say was, look,
the oceans were toxic for hundredsof thousands of years. Right?
Which means that it was reversible.Nature figured out a way.
But we don't have a hundred thousandyears . You get what I'm saying?

(23:03):
That's exactly right. Yeah.
And so, so, so for,
from our vantage pointas humans on the planet,
right. Reversibility has to have amuch shorter timescale. You, you,
you get what I mean. And if ourintervention caused it to go
more rapidly negative,

(23:24):
maybe our intervention can cause itto go back in the other direction.
Yes. Right. No, I absolutelyagree. Yeah. I mean, yeah.
I think you're getting at a great point,which is the, the timescale of it.
Right. And it's as,
it's exactly right in the sense that theEarth has natural systems sort of built
in for keeping, you know,us a habitable planet.
It's really amazing in that way. Right.

(23:45):
But those natural systems work onthe timescales of tens to hundreds of
thousands of years. Right?And it's kind of like,
that's not gonna be reallysuper beneficial for us when we're trying to deal
with how do we, how do we protectcities against sea level rise, right.
How do we, how do we, you know, actuallymake our society more resilient?
And I agree. I mean,
I've been very proud and passionate towork at Mason with the Grand Challenge

(24:09):
Initiative. And I definitely amvery happy that you're pushing that.
'Cause it is one of the key things.
And I do think that the answers here comefrom all of the different disciplines
that are working on research and workingon solutions on campus. Right? I mean,
I can give us a perspective from whathappened millions of years ago, right?
But then we need the, theengineering school to, to come,

(24:30):
come up with certain ideas of, you know,
what are the exact interventions thatwe can build that will do this? Right?
We need the environmental science program,
we need even the economics program tounder--to try and understand what's the
cost of this. Right.
So I feel like recognizing that there'san issue and that there's a role for
science to play in coming upwith the practical solutions,

(24:52):
I think that's something thatMason does a really good job of.
Outstanding, outstanding, you know,
right now we are still in our respective
silos. Not too long ago, sitting in theseat in which you're sitting in now,
I had a faculty member, a youngfaculty member, not unlike yourself,
who had developed a way ofusing, spent coffee grounds,

(25:16):
figured out a way to magnetizethese and change their
polarities,
such that you can throw outlarge quantities of this out into the ocean where
there's an oil spill, thatwould bind itself to oil.
And then you use a, amagnet, like, framework
to pull up the coffee groundswith oil attached to it.

(25:38):
You collect them, you wash them,
and then you repeat the whole process bythrowing the grounds out again. Right.
That's fascinating.
And, and he had developed this process,but he's working in that context,
just like you just said. He's in thatengineering space. He has this cool idea,
he's getting it funded, he's working.
You're in a space where youactually understand oceans, ,

(26:01):
and what things that get into theoceans can actually do to life
and the water and, and how thosechanges manifest themselves.
There is a combined solution there.
That will help us down the pathway.
And so the grand challenges arereally about how do we catalyze that?

(26:22):
Yeah. Yeah.
Catalyze an environment where you allwill just go somewhere and sit down and
start to engage one another. Because myphilosophy is with your knowledge base,
you'll come up with an ideaif, you know, if we try this,
maybe we can solve thatproblem. And that's the hope.
That is the thing that I believe we canbring to bear on a problem. You know,

(26:45):
we talk a lot aboutdiversity here at Mason,
and it gets used in only one way.
People forget that wehave people here who see
physical phenomena very, very differentlyin terms of what's happening in our,
you know, there's a diversityof thought there, right.

(27:05):
That if you take somebodywho's on this side,
you take someone who's on this otherside here who are both looking literally
at the same mass. You're looking at the ocean,
you're just looking at it froma different vantage point.
I wonder if bringing those entitiestogether somehow can create solutions that
actually have the possibility ofsaving the planet. Or really, I mean,

(27:27):
advancing the planet.
Yeah, I think that's a very inspiringperspective, because again, yeah,
of course we're in the age thatdiversity gets a negative connotation,
but I think that we are,as a university, we're,
we're sort of living proof that it'snot just about diversity of political,
you know, ideology or, or diversityof race or ethnicity. Right.

(27:48):
It is about diversity, of knowledge,about diversity of expertise.
It's about diversity ofperspective. Right. And background,
and experience. Right. And, and like,that's what makes a university great,
I think, is having that diversity ofperspective, experience, knowledge, um,
regardless of whims of politics, right.

(28:09):
That are sort of leading us to beinga unique kind of place that ideas can
come together and solutions can cometogether. And I like, you know, again,
the perspective of Right. Thiscoffee grounds idea. Right. I mean,
you would hope that that's not gonna bea controversial or politically touchy
subject. Right. That seems likea very common sense solution.
I think things like that are,

(28:30):
are a way of building consensus whereyou can get everybody on the same page
that,
that don't necessarily get people riledup about certain political affiliations
and things like that.
That's exactly right. Well, I,
I believe that's a big part ofacademia's prospect of solutions
to the, to, to the planet. Wecan bring that to the fold.
And we can do it in ways inwhich other places can't.

(28:53):
Right.
So you clearly have a passion fortalking about Earth's history and the
uniqueness of our planet. So,
so talk to me how youare engaging our students
with that and, you know, the classroomis one thing, right. But beyond that.
Yeah, that's a greatquestion. As you said,

(29:13):
I'm very passionate about sharing kindof the wonders and incredible uniqueness
of our planet with students andwith the general public. You know,
I bring that to the classroom. I've,
I've taught many sections of introductoryhistorical geology where I'm,
you know, in front of 150 freshmenwhere 95% of them are computer science
majors. Right. And I start by saying,regardless of where we're from,

(29:37):
what we're studying, everythingthat potentially divides us,
we literally all have one thing incommon. We all live on planet Earth,
and we are all citizens of this planet,
and it will benefit us to knowsomething about how this planet works,
what maintains the habitability and,and our ability to live on this planet.
Right. So I tell 'em, you know,

(29:58):
I'm not expecting you to devote yourlife to this or become a geology major,
but we're here for two anda half hours a week. Right.
Just give me a chance to.
No, I hear you .
Just give me a chance.Put whatever, you know,
sort of preconceivednotions you have aside,
come here with an open mind for two anda half hours a week, and I promise you,

(30:19):
you will learn something fascinatingand you will not be disappointed. Right.
That's like my sort of contract atthe beginning. I'm kind of like, just,
you know, you're breathing air rightnow. You drank water this morning. Right.
Think about all of the thingsthat allow you to have this life.
They all come from our planet.Right. So just humor me. Right.
Two and a half hours a week, come withan open mind, ready to learn, and--

(30:41):
Well, you should, you shouldtell 'em. Look, the reality is,
is you both have to deal with silica.
Yeah.
For you, it's sand .
Right.
For them it's chips.
Yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah, of course.There's all those connections too, right?
Yeah. And it's like, so I do,you know, I, of course, I,
I do that and I'm teaching an upperlevel course about sort of reading
sedimentary rocks and the history thatthey can tell us about our planet.

(31:04):
But I'm involved in a lot of other, otheroutreach activities. I'm working with,
uh, local high schools. Um,
one of the things that I think is alsopretty amazing is that in this area where
we kind of live in the suburbs and in alittle bit more of an urban environment
in Washington, DC our everyday livesare not as connected to nature. Right.
And I think there's a greatbenefit beyond, of course,

(31:24):
the scientific aspect to feelingmore connected with the Earth,
feeling more connected to nature.
A lot of what draws people to geologyis spending time outside. Right.
And traveling to, andexploring new places.
So I'm very passionateabout taking students in the field. We've developed, uh,
spring break field trips in our departmentwhere we've gone to Death Valley,
California and Utah with 20 plusstudents from our department. Um,

(31:47):
I always take students on fieldtrips in my upper level courses.
And I'm doing a series of field tripsfor high school outreach as well as part
of some of my NSF fundedprojects. So I think there's like,
also getting people out in nature, it,
it sort of fosters that appreciationmore. Um, and fosters, you know,
maybe just a thought in their mind, right.

(32:08):
Even if they're not geologistsare gonna go onto that to, wow,
this is something special that weshould care about. That kind of thing.
Mm-hmm .Mm-hmm . So,
so what's the key to communicating somepretty heavy science to students who
don't have a deep background ormay not even be in science at all?
Not even a computersciences. I'm talking--
Absolutely.
--Someone in humanities.
Right, right. Right. Yeah. Ithink, um, you know, one of the,

(32:29):
one of the fascinating things...
Do those same arguments work?
You know, I think they can,
and I think one of thefascinating things about geology,
it's very interesting inthat like, even though I've,
I've dedicated my career to science,
I'm also somebody that's very passionateabout the humanities and passionate
about art and literatureand things like that.
And geology is a really specialscience. 'cause it's very,

(32:50):
it's kind of based onstorytelling in a way, right?
We kind of tell stories about thegeological past, and in a way, like,
our planet's history is one of thegreatest stories ever told it. It's a,
it's a crazy story withtwists and turns, right?
And like unexpected developments, right?
We've got major mass extinctionsand great ice ages, right.

(33:11):
And big meteorite impactsand volcanic eruptions.
And so there's that component oftelling a very compelling story.
I think that is very appealing to somebodyfrom the humanities that you can get
from geology that you may not get fromphysics or chemistry, for example. Right?
So I think that I try and engage them onthat perspective when we sort of get to
the part of telling the story, I'm sortof like, all right, sit back and enjoy,

(33:35):
you know, this story that I'mgonna tell you that's just,
this is really compelling story.
So I think there's acomponent of that in geology,
which is appealing toeverybody, right. That,
that wants to listen to a good storywith a lot of twists and turns, right?
No, it's a great story. Yeah. Ihear you. So as we wrap up here,
let's get philosophical for a moment.
Okay. .
I mean, really philosophical, right?

(33:55):
So you study the origins ofEarth and life on this planet.
Yeah. Mm-hmm .
How has it affected how you think aboutlife in general and what it all means?
Yeah.
I think for me that one of the thingsthat geology gives us perspective on is
time. Um, which is different, right?It was sort of like, you know,
Copernicus told us that Earth is not thecenter of the universe and we're just

(34:18):
one speck that's sort ofcircling around, right?
So it kind of puts us in a perspectivewhat geology does that with respect to
time. We may have a thoughtthat, you know, oh my God,
what happened in the 1800s is so long ago,
and then you put this perspectiveof 4.5 billion years. And it's like,
it also puts us in sort of perspectiveof that we are only sort of

(34:40):
a speck in time. Right? AndI think that they, you know,
that some people might see that assort of diminishing the role of humans,
but to me,
that makes me all the more thankfulto be here in this moment and be
able to, you know,
because you talked about how how manyplanets are out there that can't support
complex life. Right? SoI feel so thankful to,

(35:01):
to be alive in this moment where wehave this incredible planet, you know,
that is sustaining our life and,right, and giving us, giving us, uh,
the chance to, to pursue all of thethings that life has to offer. Right.
So I think that geology reallycan give you a perspective on just
how thankful we shouldbe to be in this moment,

(35:22):
and how many things hadto have happened, right,
over the millions and billions of yearsto reach this moment where we've got
an atmosphere full of oxygen.We've got a planet full of water.
We've got these beautifullandscapes that sustain us.
That's pretty special that we havethat and we're alive in this moment.
Wow. That's amazing. That gets about as good of an outro.

(35:46):
.
As I could have asked for.
Well, thank you President .Thank you, President Washington.
Well, we're gonna have toleave it there. Geoffrey,
thank you for joining us to talkabout the mysteries and the histories
of the planet we call home. I am GeorgeMason President Gregory Washington,
and thank you for listening.
And tune in next time for moreconversations that show why we are All

(36:10):
Together Different.
If you like what youheard on this podcast,
go to podcast.gmu.edu formore of Gregory Washington's
conversations with thethought leaders, experts,
and educators who take on the grandchallenges facing our students graduates,
and higher education.That's podcast.gmu.edu.