Professor Dave Waltham

I am a geophysicist with extensive experience in numerical and mathematical modelling of Earth-processes.  My current research is largely concerned with understanding whether our planet is a typical, medium-sized, rocky world or, instead, a very peculiar one. 

This involves looking at properties such as plate-tectonics, magnetism, Gy-scale climate stability or our large Moon to investigate whether they are common properties of many worlds or, alternatively, rare characteristics that were necessary preconditions for the origin of life and the emergence of intelligent observers.

Precession rate of the Earth as a function of the moon’s mass and the angular momentum in the Earth-Moon system.  The blue circle indicates the true values for the Earth-Moon system.  Note that Earth is surprisingly close to having an unstable obliquity (occurs for precession rates less than 26 “/y).