Dr. Suan Brantley, the Atherton Professor in Department of Geosciences at Pennsylvania State University, will present the 2025 Klepser Lecture hosted by the Department of Earth, Enviornmental & Planetary Sciences.   

Abstract: Weathering of silicate rocks removes CO2 from the atmosphere and has been proposed as a way to mitigate global warming. Such ‘enhanced rock weathering’ includes mining, grinding, and dispersing silicate rock on farmland where it interacts with CO2 in soils. But the rate a mineral weathers in a lab experiment is faster than its rate of weathering in the field, suggesting that rates of enhanced rock weathering may be slower than predicted.  I will review the lab-field discrepancy in the context of enhanced rock weathering and what is needed globally for CO2 mitigation.