About this talk

The land is often seen as the canvas for human activity: a flat(ish) surface that we can build on, dig into and stand on. Surface area is becoming increasingly valuable – after all, they ain't making any more of the stuff. This lecture will consider land – both rocks and soil, and build up a picture of what the land we stand on is doing, on both short and very long timescales. How should we think about the ground and its future? The ground is the foundation of our daily lives – we walk around on it, build our homes on it, and travel huge distances across it - but there's far more to it than just being the structure that holds us all up. This lecture can't cover everything that happens underground, but will be built around two pillars: Our footprint (the amount of ground we need to live) is far larger than many of us realise. The ground is an active part of our world, exchanging water, carbon, heat and life with the atmosphere, ocean, biosphere and ice above.

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