From the deep Earth to human habitat – Sierd Cloetingh tiszteleti tag székfoglaló előadása

Over the past decades, Earth sciences have rapidly changed from largely descriptive to process-oriented disciplines which aim at quantitative models for the reconstruction and forecasting of the complex processes in the solid Earth. This includes predictions, in the sense of forecasting the future behaviour of geologic systems, but also the prediction of geologic patterns which exist now in the subsurface as frozen evidence of the past.
Intensive utilisation of the human habitat carries largely unknown risks and makes us increasingly vulnerable. Human use of the outermost part of solid Earth is intensifying at a rapid pace. There is an urgent need for scientifically advanced “geo-prediction systems” that can accurately locate subsurface resources and forecast the timing and magnitude of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and land subsidence (some of those being man-induced). The design of such systems is a major multidisciplinary scientific challenge. Prediction of solid-Earth processes also provides important constraints for predictions in the oceanographic and atmospheric sciences and climate variability.