Oxford Events, the new replacement for OxTalks, will launch on 16th March. The two-week OxTalks freeze period starts on Monday 2nd March. During this time, there will be no facility to publish or edit events. The existing OxTalks site will remain available to view during this period. Once Oxford Events launches, you will need a Halo login to submit events. Full details are available on the Staff Gateway.
Earth likely acquired a significant fraction of its volatile elements during the main stages of accretion. The atmospheres of the planetary embryos that accreted to form Earth must therefore have survived the giant impacts (collisions between planet-sized bodies) that dominate the end of accretion. Using numerical simulations of giant impacts, I will show that the efficiency of atmospheric loss depends strongly on the surface conditions on the colliding bodies (e.g., atmospheric pressure, presence/absence of an ocean). Understanding the complex feedbacks between the evolution and survival of planetary atmospheres provides new insights into the origin of our atmosphere and ocean.