Transitions: The Changing Earth-Life System - Critical Information for Society from the Deep Past

TRANSITIONS is a collaboration among several funded and unfunded initiatives originating in—but not limited to—the sedimentary geology and paleontology science communities. These communities are united around a singular intellectual challenge: Understanding the full range of Earth-life process behaviors through all of Earth history, including deep time, is vital for addressing urgent societal issues, and these processes must be addressed in a systematic and interdisciplinary fashion. TRANSITIONS has identified four overarching questions that must be answered in order to meet this challenge: • What is the full range of potential climate system states and transitions experienced on Earth? • What are the thresholds, feedbacks, and tipping points in the climate system, and how do they vary among different climate states? • What are the ranges of ecosystem response, modes of vulnerability, and resilience to change in different Earth- system states? • How have climate, the oceans, the earth’s sedimentary crust, carbon sinks and soils, and life itself evolved together, and what does this tell us about the future trajectory of the integrated Earth-life system?