Tom Oliver Lecture Series
About the Series
The Tom Oliver Lecture Series is a public lecture series hosted by the Department of Geoscience in the Faculty of Science. Taking place annually, the series seeks to bring in internationally renowned researchers to present stimulating lectures on topics of fundamental interest to the Department of Geoscience and the broader UCalgary community.
About Dr. Tom Oliver
Dr. Tom Oliver founded UCalgary’s Department of Geology in 1959 and was a former head of the department (1963-65) and dean of the Faculty of Science (1978-84). Dr. Oliver provided outstanding leadership as a researcher, instructor and administrator, and as the dean, assisted with the development of the geophysics program and the dramatic growth of the department in the late 1970s. He is remembered as an inspirational teacher, leader, respected petroleum geologist, humanist and humorist.

Carbon Mineralization for CO2 Removal from Air and Permanent Storage
In his work on CO2 capture and storage via carbon mineralization, Dr. Peter Kelemen has increasingly concentrated on developing low cost methods for CO2 removal from air (CDR). He’s come to a realization that various processes, sometimes termed “enhanced weathering” as well as carbon mineralization, might offer comparatively low cost routes to CDR at the scale of gigatons per year. In this talk, Dr. Kelemen will elaborate on two such methods, one involving MgO- or CaO-looping, and another using highly engineered Direct Air Capture machines to enrich air to a few weight percent CO2, and then using that to enhance CO2 concentration in water circulating through reactive rocks in the subsurface.
Date: Friday, December 4, 2020
Presenter: Dr. Peter Kelemen, Arthur D. Storke Professor in Columbia University’s Dept. of Earth & Environmental Sciences, based at Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory.
Dr. Kelemen’s presentation (PDF) (updated as of December 23, 2020)
*Due to the large size of the original PowerPoint presentation file, we are only able to share the PDF file online. If you’d like to receive the PowerPoint file, please email scialumni@ucalgary.ca
Related research papers: