News

Across the globe, sea level has been rising for decades, but we don’t know how fast. Researchers have now analyzed tide gauge data and reconstructed global mean sea level since 1902. Their record yields a slower average rise before 1990 than previously thought, but similar high rates of about 3.1 mm/yr as observed from independent satellite observations from 1993-2012. This suggests that global mean sea level has been accelerating much faster than previously assumed in the past two decades.

The Hawaiian-Emperor volcanic island chain in the NW Pacific Ocean is well known for its peculiar 60o bend. The cause for this bend has been heavily debated for decades. In a new article published in Nature Communications, a group of scientists from the University of Oslo, GFZ Potsdam, and Utrecht University now definitely demonstrate that to form the observed bend requires an abrupt change in the motion of the Pacific tectonic plate, while southward drift of the mantle plume that has sourced the chain since ~80 Ma is required to explain its entire 2000 km length.

On 3 May, The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters helt its annual meeting. Several prizes were awarded, among them, Fridtjof Nansen Award of Excellence in Science and also new members of the Norwegian Academy were honored. Two distinctions went to CEED this day.

Opportunities for research in paleo- and rock magnetism at the Ivar Giæver Geomagnetic Laboratory (IGGL), University of Oslo, Norway with the Ivar Giæver Visiting Fellowship Program (fall 2017). Application deadline is June 30, 2017.

What has Einstein and Newton got to do with the motion of the solar system bodies?

The Centre for Earth Evolution and Dynamics was opened in March 2013, and is now in 2017 turned four SFF-year-old. CEED is a Center of Excellence (CEO) at University of Oslo, hosted by the Department of Geosciences.

Mauritius is best known as a tropical holiday paradise island in the Indian Ocean, but for an Earth Science research team led by Professor Trond H. Torsvik it is piece of a geological puzzle. Now they have found a new fragment of an ancient continental crust beneath the young, but inactive volcanoes on the island.

Several interested members of the public and researchers working with natural hazards and earthquakes were in the audience on 13. December to follow the seminar on Risk and management of earthquakes. CEED-professor Torgeir B. Andersen gave a lecture about why Italy are affected by a large number of earthquakes and discussed several aspects concerning the geology of earthquakes.

First week of November the Norwegian Research School DEEP arranged its very first intensive course for PhD students. The course Planetary Physics and Global Tectonics is the first in a series of new courses established by the school.

Opportunities for research in paleo- and rock magnetism at the Ivar Giæver Geomagnetic Laboratory (IGGL), University of Oslo, Norway with the Ivar Giæver Visiting Fellowship Program (spring 2017). Application deadline is November 30, 2016.

For 56 mill years ago the climate on Earth changed rapidly and the temperature increased at least 5 degrees. Scientists are now closer to understand the climate change, called PETM, and why it lasted over 150 000 years. The answer might be eruptions of methane gas from craters offshore Norway.

Today it was announced who will get the foremost awards for 2016 from University of Oslo. Gratifying was that Professor of geodynamics Trond Helge Torsvik from Department of Geosciences and The Centre for Earth Evolution and Dynamics (CEED) - is awarded the University of Oslo's research prize.

International team of climate researchers reconstructs global cooling in the reign of the Roman emperor Justinian. Ice-cores and data about sulfate flux at Greenland and Artica reveils the pasts climate disasters. Their research presented at EGU 2016; Vienna recently.

Are you interested in our research and related activities to CEED? Follow us on social media; We are available on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook as well as on CEEDs own Blog.

With over 30 abstracts for posters, invited talks, session chairs and convenor positions, CEED researchers are well represented at the American Geophysical Union’s (AGU) Fall Meeting, 14-18th December. Held annually in San Francisco and now in its 48th year, there are over 24,000 attendees from all over the world discussing exciting new research from all areas of geosciences.

Geoscience Frontiers (GSF) had its Annual Convention & Editorial Meeting in October. Mathew Domeier, CEED and Department of Geosciences was here awarded the GSF Medal for the 2014 Best Paper for an article about plate techtonic in the Paleozoic.

The Research Council of Norway has funded seven new national research schools on free topics for the period 2016-2023. One of them is the Norwegian Research School for Dynamics and Evolution of Earth and Planets, which will be hosted by the Centre for Earth Evolution and Dynamics (CEED), University of Oslo.

Three researchers from CEED are awarded prizes from the European Geosciences Union (EGU). Two of the prizes will be formal given to the prize winners at EGUs 2016 General Assembly in Vienna (17–22 April). See the three EGU-prize winners here.

Professor Trond Helge Torsvik, Department of Geosciences, University of Oslo and director of CEED received officially the renowned Leopold von Buch Plakette for his outstanding scientific contributions to increasing our understanding of geodynamics. Venue was GeoBerlin2015.

CEED' Earth Dynamics group will participate in the SUBITOP - European Training Network (ETN). The new Marie Sklodowska Curie Action (MSCA) network will provide a framework for training and career development of young researchers from different institutions in Europe, for research in geodynamics, geophysics, geology and geomorphology .

NFR has recently granted money for a new research school CHESS, and an adjunct professor position at the Department of Geosciences, UiO. The grant is meant to strengthen the collaboration between the earth science communities at the universities of Oslo and Bergen and to place the Norwegian studies in paleoclimate at the forefront of international research. CEED researchers will be important collaborators in the work.

After over 35 years the Chinese Chang’E-3 mission is the first to visit and land on the lunar surface. CEED, University of Oslo postdoctoral researcher Zhiyong Xiao participates in the mission team, which has just published their first results in Science this week that reveals a vivid geological picture of the landing site on the Moon.

Geologist and senior research fellow Henrik Svensen at the Centre for Earth Evolution and Dynamics (CEED) and the Department of Geosciences, University of Oslo, was awarded the Toffen Prize 2015 for outstanding contribution to the popularization of geology. The prize was awarded at the Winter Conference for the Norwegian Geological Society, January 2015.

The Centre for Earth Evolution and Dynamics (CEED) had its formal opening of the new office location in the ZEB building on 21 October. The opening was done by CEEDs director professor Trond H. Torsvik. Both researchers and the invited guests could celebrate with champagne and cake that CEED now is in place in its own centre at Campus, Blindern.

This summer in July and August some lucky geophysicists had an interesting summer work in the Artic. Spending weeks on the research ship MS Haakon Mosby they did a geophysical survey of the Earth's crust of the Barents Sea. In the research team participated CEED scientists Alexander Minakov and Nina Lebedeva-Ivanova.