Deep Carbon Science in the Context of Geologic Time

The meeting will cover deep carbon science in the context of time. We will spotlight the evolution of deep carbon in Earth’s biological and nonbiological reservoirs over 4.6 billion years. Oral sessions and discussions will focus on how carbon is incorporated into a growing planet, what fraction is sequestered in the interior and what fraction returned to space, and how early planetary processes mediate these transfers. After focusing on planetary assembly, we will turn to the evolution of carbon reservoirs in the first 800 million years of Earth history (the Hadean). We will then explore early deep life, the population of terrestrial niches, the challenges that were overcome, and the feedbacks and interactions between the geosphere and the biosphere. The final phase of the conference will address the carbon cycle and how it has evolved through time. A goal of the conference is to engage a diverse and interdisciplinary group of Earth scientists, planetary scientists, and geobiologists.