Meeting Schedule

Monday, July 18th 

5:00 – 8:00: Evening catered mixer and icebreaker (Ben H. Parker Student Center Ballroom A)

Tuesday, July 19tH 

until 8:30: Breakfast at Mines Market

9:00 – 9:30: Introduction: What is the critical zone and how can I get involved? (Ben H. Parker Student Center Ballroom BC)

9:30 – 10:30: Community-building activity: Exploring the critical zone (Ballroom BC)

10:30 – 11:00: Break

11:00 – 12:00: What is going on in CZ science? Nicole Gasparini (Tulane, moderator), Holly Barnard (CU-Boulder), Li Li (Penn State), Sharon Billings (U Kansas) + Sean Gallen (Colorado State) (Ballroom BC) 

12:00 – 1:30: Lunch at Mines Market

1:30 – 3:30: Lightning talks: participant research and interests (15 minute break in the middle; Ballroom BC)

3:30 – 4:00: Break

4:00 – 5:00: Career and skill development workshops (2 concurrent sessions): 

• Wendy Bohon (IRIS): Science isn't done until it's communicated: Scicomm tips and tricks (Ballroom BC)

• Holly Barnard (CU-Boulder): The life and times of a NSF proposal (Ballroom A)

After 5 pm: dinner at Mines Market

Wednesday, July 20tH

until 8:30: Breakfast at Mines Market - go directly to the workshop room of interest afterward!

9:00 – 12:00: Critical zone workshops (2 concurrent sessions, two 1.5 hour slots) 

Session 1:

• Nicole Gasparini (Tulane) (9-10:20): Landscape evolution modeling and the Landlab toolkit (Berthoud 201)

• Tieyuan Zhu (Penn State) (9-10:20): Seismic tools for exploring the critical zone (Ballroom BC)

Session 2:

• Adrienne Marshall (Mines) (10:30-11:50): Tools for interactive visualization of critical zone data (Berthoud Hall 201; link to materials here!)

• Lixin Jin and Lin Ma (U Texas El Paso) (10:30-11:50): Isotopes are critical zone scientists’ great friends! (Ballroom BC)

12:00 – 1:15: Lunch at Mines Market

1:15-1:30: Group photo

1:30 – 2:30: Breakout groups around five themes (optional; Ballrooms A, BC):

1. How can we develop new and promote existing tools and approaches to advance our understanding of CZ thickness and depth? (leads: Singha and Li)

2. How can porosity development, and its feedbacks with chemical, mechanical, and biological processes, inform conceptual models of CZ architecture? (leads: Sitchler and Sullivan)

3. What is the nature of communication between the land surface and the bottom of the CZ, and how do these surfaces co-evolve? (leads: Billings and Gasparini)

4. Is the CZ responding to the “great acceleration” of the Anthropocene? Can we project these changes into the future? (leads: Marshall and Jin)

5. How do we upscale small-scale understanding of the CZ to large-scale representations in earth system models? (leads: Gallen and Roth)

2:30 - 2:45: Break

2:45 – 3:30: Breakout groups continued (optional)

3:30-3:45: Richard Yuretich (NSF): Opportunities at NSF (Ballroom BC)

3:45-4:00 Break

4:00 – 5:00: Career and skill development workshops (2 concurrent sessions)

• Wendy Bohon (IRIS): Listening, connecting and networking: How to go deeper (Ballroom A)

• Leon Walls (U Vermont): Equity, diversity, community as foundation of science (Ballroom BC)

6:30 – 8:00: Catered workshop dinner (Ballroom BC)

Thursday, July 21st  

until 8:30: Breakfast at Mines Market

9:00 – 10:00: Community-building activity: Returning to the future of the CZ (Ballroom BC)

10:00 – 11:00: Cam Brinkworth (UCAR): Inclusive leadership: Better science through psychological safety (Ballroom BC)

11:00 – 12:30: Critical zone workshops (2 concurrent sessions) 

• Alexis Sitchler (Mines): Modeling is more than math: how we can use a reactive transport and a modeling mindset to advance understanding of the critical zone (Berthoud Hall 201)

• Sharon Billings (U Kansas): Tools for integrating life's mysteries into CZ science: Two key ecological examples from above and below ground (Ballroom BC)

12:30 –1:30: Final thoughts + conference closing, then lunch at Mines Market