20th March 2022: (3.20 pm to 4.50 pm IST)
Topic: On the Future (and Past) of Stratigraphy(8 minutes)

Graham Shields is Professor of Chemical Geology at University College London (UCL). Since studying at Imperial College, London and ETH Zurich, he has taught and researched in France, Canada, Australia, China and Germany before returning to the UK in 2008. Graham Shields is a world expert on Proterozoic and Palaeozoic environmental and climate change, renowned for his pioneering work on geochemical proxies and the long-term carbon cycle. His research has been funded by research grants and personal fellowships from the Royal Society, Leverhulme Foundation and NERC (UK), ARC (Australia), DFG and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany), the Templeton Foundation (USA) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Research achievements include the development of widely accepted models to explain climatic extremes (Snowball Earth), oxygenation events and biological radiations during the Tonian through Cambrian periods. At present he is the Chief Editor of the Journal of the Geological Society and Chair of the UK Earth System Science special interest group. Graham has had various roles within the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), including Chair of the Cryogenian Subcommission (2012-2020), Secretary of the Neoproterozoic Subcommission (2004-2012) and Leader of IGCP project 512 on Neoproterozoic Ice ages. Recently, as Chair of the ICS Working Group on chronostratigraphic subdivision of the pre-Cryogenian timescale, he led efforts to propose a new age framework for the early rock record.