Vincent Courtillot

Vincent Courtillot ( born March 6, 1948 in Neuilly -sur -Seine ) is a French geophysicist. He is known as a representative of the thesis that different mass extinction in Earth's history are due to volcanism.

Life

Courtillot studied at the Ecole des Mines in Paris ( graduating as a mining engineer, Ingénieur Civil des Mines, 1971), at Stanford University (Master 's degree in Geophysics 1972) and the University of Paris, where he 1974 ( Doctorat de 3ème cycle, University of Paris VI) and 1977 ( Doctorat d'Etat, University of Paris VII) wrote his two theses. He researched and taught at Stanford University (1974 as a visiting scientist in 1980 as a visiting professor ) at Caltech ( 1994 Fairchild Scholar, 2001 Moore Fellow ), the University of California, Santa Barbara ( visiting professor 1986/97 ), at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris ( IPGP ) (1983 to 1989 physicists first class and 1989 to 1994 physicien de classe exceptionelle ) and from 1978 to 1983 as Maitre de Conference, and from 1994 as a professor at the University of Paris VII ( Denis Diderot ). 1995 to 1998 he was director of the Ecole des Sciences de la Terre doctorale ( Graduate School of Earth Sciences ) of the University of Paris VII IGPG and 1996 he was a visiting professor at the University of Minnesota. 1996 to 1998 and 2004 to January 2011, he was director of the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris ( IPGP ).

1989 to 1993 he was with the Department of Education responsible for university research ( Directeur de la Recherche et des Etudes doctorales ) and 1998 to 2001 for research ( Directeur de Recherche ) under the Education Minister Claude Allègre.

He was advisor to the popular science magazine La Recherche, 1994-1996 Europe - editor of Geophysical Research Letters and 2003 to 2005 editor of Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

Memberships and Honors

He received the 2001 Prix Dolomieu and 1981 the Prix Gay of the French Academy of Sciences, is Commander of the Academic Palms (1997), was awarded the Silver Medal of the CNRS (1993) and he is a Knight of the Legion of Honour (1994) and of the Ordre national du Mérite ( 1990, 1997). He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the first of Bullard Lecturer he was in 2002. 1996 to 2010 he was professor ( Professeur senior) of the Institut Universitaire de France. He is a member of the Academia Europaea and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Courtillot was president of the European Union of Geosciences and is a member of the Academie des Sciences in 2003. 2002-2010 he was the founding president of the Conseil Scientifique of the city of Paris.

Work

Courtillot dealt with paleomagnetism. In 1980 he founded with Jean -Pierre Pozzi the Paleomagnetic Laboratory at IPGP. He discovered paleomagnetic evidence in the Afar Triangle Djibouti to the division of the African continent along the Great African grave breach. In 1978 he found a (worldwide detectable ) acceleration ( abrupt change in the second time derivative ) in the secular rate of change of the geomagnetic field ( Jerk ) by 1969. Such Jerks were recorded even earlier ( and thereafter) are particularly evident in the east component of the field in Europe and are references to operations on the border of the Earth's core and mantle, followed by correlations with the variation of day length (length of day, LOD) point ( Courtillot and others).

In the early 1980s he was involved in the geological ( paleomagnetic ) exploration of Tibet and examined the plate tectonic development of China.

He is best known as a proponent of the theory, the major mass extinction of Earth's history were triggered by volcanic events. In the event of a mass extinction at the Permian - Triassic boundary, he made the formation of the Siberian Traps responsible, in the case of the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, the Deccan Trapps and is thus in a sense in opposition to the hypothesis of extinction by meteor strike by Luis Walter Alvarez and Walter Alvarez. He also examined the influence of Flutvulkanismus on another mass extinction and more recent climatic impact of the Laki fissure eruption of 1783/84 in Iceland.

He is regarded in France as a skeptic of global warming due to human influence, which he considers a dogma that difficult scientific disputes. He also criticized the preponderance of numerical modeling and the neglect of the observation component, both in the falsification of the models as well as questions about the indication of error limits. He analyzed in this context with employees, the average temperature development in Europe and North America, new, after he had received no access to the original data from the relevant scientists of the IPCC report, Philip D. Jones, and came to different conclusions. The trend continued after Courtillot differently in North America and Europe and is linear or constant trends, punctuated by discontinuities, characteristic of non- linear behavior to describe that correlates little with the IPCC predictions of an influence of the increase of carbon dioxide from numerical models. His commitment sparked in France from a scientific controversy. Courtillot stresses ( and studied ) the main influence of the Sun on the Earth's climate and investigates the influences of the geomagnetic field on the climate.

Writings

• The demise of the dinosaurs. Geological disasters, Spektrum Akademischer Verlag 1999 (French original La vie en catastrophes, Fayard, 1995)
• Nouveau voyage au center de la Terre, Éditions Odile Jacob, 2009
• With Vink How continents break up; Scientific American, July 1983 ( start of the African continent in the Afar depression )
• A volcanic eruption, Scientific American, October 1990 ( Deccan Traps)
• Boundary with Jean Besse, Didier Vandamme, Raymond Montigny, Jean -Jacques Jaeger, Henri Cappetta Deccan flood basalts at the Cretaceous / Tertiary? , Earth and Planetary Science Letters, Volume 80, 1986, pp. 361-374
• With Mark A. Richards, Robert A. Duncan Flood Basalts and Hot -Spot Tracks: Plume Heads and Tails, Science, Volume 246, 1989, p 103-107
• With J. Besse Magnetic field reversals, polar wander, and core -mantle coupling, Science, Volume 237, 1987, p 1140-1147
• Anne Davaille, J. Besse, Joann Stock, Three distinct types of hotspots in the Earth 's mantle, Earth Planet. Sci. Lett, Volume 205, 2003, pp. 295-308
• With P. Renne On the ages of flood basalt events, Comptes Rendus Geosciences, Volume 335, 2003, pp. 113-140
• With J. Besse Revised and synthetic apparent polar wander paths of the African, Eurasian, North American and Indian plates, and true polar wander since 200 Ma, J. Geophys. Res, vol 96, 1991, pp. 4029-4050
• True polar wander in Gubbins et al (Editor) Encyclopedia of Geomagnetism and paleomagnetism, Springer 2007
• With Le Mouel A short history of geomagnetism and paleomagnetism, Reviews of Geophysics, Volume 45, 2007