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Professor, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge
Professor Michael Bickle’s research combines field based, petrological and geochemical research projects with physical modelling in order to understand better the important processes which control global evolution. Most of the research has been related to tectonic processes within the solid Earth but most recently he has been working on solid earth-hydrosphere-atmosphere interactions. This work investigates the controls on long-term climate change through an understanding of river chemistry.
The major long-term mechanism for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is through weathering of silicates on the continents with the CO2transported by rivers to the ocean where it is deposited as a carbonate. Professor Bickle’s research examines how much the erosive exhumation of the Himalayas is responsible for climatic cooling over the last 50 million years.
His other interests include the thermal evolution of mountain belts, the tectonic processes which operated in the early Earth, the physical processes which control melting within the Earth and determining the significance of fluid-flow in metamorphic rocks. His most recent work focuses on fluid-mineral reaction kinetics associated with geological carbon sequestration.
