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Distinguished Lecturers
2007-8
2008-9
2009-10
The
Mineralogical Society is pleased to offer four lectures for
the 2009-2010 academic year, to be given by
Professor David
Manning (University of
Newcastle upon Tyne) and
Professor Tony Fallick (SUERC, East Kilbride).
Lectures offered by
Professor Manning
Lecture A:
Mineral solutions to global problems
The world faces tremendous challenges to resolve the
problems associated with climate change and food supply. In
both of these, minerals have a vital role to play. To
achieve carbon sequestration targets of up to 8 gigatonnes
per year, we have to consider reactions that may take place
on a global scale, and one way to do this is to understand
and exploit those that take place in soils, recognising the
role of plants as a carbon sink that links the soil and the
atmosphere. To provide the ‘bottom billion’, the poorest
of the world’s population who struggle to raise subsistence
crops let alone commodity crops, we need to exploit the
natural processes by which soil minerals provide essential
nutrients as an appropriate companion to conventional
fertiliser use. In these and other areas, minerals have a
vital role to play in sustaining the human race.
Lecture B:
Minerals in biological systems
As a mineralogist surrounded by biologists, I am often
asked “what do minerals do?” Despite the widespread
perception that they just sit in glass cases in museums,
minerals are of course dynamic components of the biosphere,
as any creature with teeth, a skeleton or a shell can tell
you. Even the silent plants depend on minerals within
their biomass to perform specific functions on which they
depend for their existence. What is remarkable is the way
in which biological systems influence the rates of growth
(and dissolution) of minerals. For example the antlers of a
red deer, cast and regrown annually may weigh several kg,
requiring ingestion and mobilisation of normally poorly
soluble Ca and P on a timescale that is instant from a
geological point of view. There are many other
examples of remarkably rapid mineral reactions within both
the plant and animal kingdoms, and of course microbes also
interact closely with mineral systems.
Prof. Manning has agreed to give his
talks at the following venues:
-
School
of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences,
University of Birmingham
Monday, 23rd November 2009,
5.00 pm, exact venue to be confirmed
Minerals in biological systems
Contact:
Jonathan Clatworthy
-
Geographical, Earth and
Environmental Sciences, Keedleston Road Site,
University
of Derby
Thursday, 3rd December 2009,
6.00 pm,
exact venue to be confirmed
Contact: Hugh
Rollinson
Mineral solutions to global problems
-
Dept of Environmental and
Geographical Sciences, Manchester Metropolitan
University
16 March 2010, 1.00 pm,
John Dalton Building, Room E0.05
Mineral solutions to global problems
-
Camborne School of Mines, University of Exeter
Date to be decided
Mineral solutions to global problems
Lectures offered by Professor Fallick
Lecture A:
The oxygen and hydrogen stable isotope geochemistry of
gemstones
Gem deposits offer particularly interesting challenges
to the geologist: because they are relatively rare, unusual
circumstances are necessary for their formation. Stable
isotope geochemistry is one of the tools with which we can
investigate these exceptional geological conditions. Apart
from the intrinsic scientific interest of understanding
formation mechanisms and conditions, such research can also
elucidate genetic models to guide exploration and
exploitation strategies, and identify diverse contributions
to placer deposits. As an aid in constraining provenance,
stable isotope ratios may have application in fingerprinting
conflict minerals and materials.
The stable isotope (18O/16O;
D/H) composition of silicate and oxide minerals is usually a
function of the temperature, isotopic characteristics and
chemistry of the parental fluid from which they
precipitated. The oxygen isotope fractionation factor
between the fluid and the mineral depends on the environment
of chemical bonding in a reasonably well-understood way.
The application of such concepts to the precious stones
emerald, ruby and sapphire is now established, and progress
is being made with newer favourites such as red spinel and
green garnet (tsavorite, tsavolite). The approach has
proven particularly informative for semi-precious varieties
such as agate and amethyst.
Lecture B:
Planet Earth’s mid-life crisis:
Carbon isotopes, concretions and the “Great oxidation event”
Around 2.2 billion years ago, the Earth
experienced a series of dramatic upheavals which accompanied
the transition from a reducing to an oxidising
ocean/atmosphere system. The global carbon cycle was
perturbed to an extent unparalleled before or since, with
the changes documented in the stable carbon isotope record
of carbonate (δ13Ccarb). From
concretions in sediments, there is evidence that the manner
in which organic matter is remineralised underwent radical
change. However, the exact sequence of events leading to
this “greatest pollution event of all time” (Lovelock) is
not yet clear, and several aspects are paradoxical. It is
an open question whether there was one or several excursions
to high (δ13Ccarb); the end of the
high δ13C record is reasonably well-established
at 2056 ± 6Ma, but its inception is not well defined, so
that only a minimum duration (~ 140 my) is known. The
interplay of the records of oxidised carbon (as carbonate)
and reduced carbon (as organic matter) is especially
problematic. Recent drilling in Arctic Russia by the
International Continental Scientific Drilling Program
FAR-DEEP Consortium has produced a marvellous new archive of
3.6km of drillcore with which these and other issues are
being addressed.
Prof. Fallick has
agreed to give his talks at the following venues:
-
University
of Aberdeen
Planet Earth’s mid-life crisis:
Carbon isotopes, concretions and the “Great oxidation event”
-
Keele University
Planet Earth’s mid-life crisis:
Carbon isotopes, concretions and the “Great oxidation event”
-
University of Leeds
Planet Earth’s mid-life crisis:
Carbon isotopes, concretions and the “Great oxidation event”
-
University College Cork
Planet Earth’s mid-life crisis:
Carbon isotopes, concretions and the “Great oxidation event”
To apply for a visit by a
distinguished lecturer in the 2010–11 academic year:
To promote interest
and discussions across the broad field of Mineral Sciences
(including all aspects of petrology and geochemistry at the
Earth’s surface and at depth) the Mineralogical Society has
appointed two lecturers, both of whom are good communicators
and experts in their fields, to give lectures at
universities and related institutions. The lectures will be
aimed to appeal to undergraduates and research students as
well as more advanced scientists. To promote the lectures,
the Mineralogical Society pays the travel expenses of the
lecturers; whilst the host departments cover any
accommodation and dining expenses.
Please apply now (to the
distinguished lecturer coordinator,
Dr Martin Lee, if
your department is interested in hosting either of these
speakers in the 2010/11 academic year. Please send this
completed form to Dr
Lee.
______________________________________________________________________________
In the 2008-2009
academic year, the appointed lecturers were:
Prof. Liane Benning (Leeds University), and
Dr Marian Holness (University of Cambridge).
Liane Benning
How to
track the birth of a nanoparticle: the fight between
kinetics and thermodynamics.
Nanoparticles play an
important role in many terrestrial environments in the
sequestration as well as cycling of elements, including
toxic metals and organics. Their nucleation, growth and
stability in near Earth surface settings can now be
quantified using in situ and time resolved
synchrotron-based approaches combined with high-resolution
imaging techniques. Furthermore, the formation and
transformation kinetics of nanoparticles and the
mechanisms and effects that various metals or organics have
on these processes will be discussed.
How 'Earthlings'
have fun looking for life in a MARS analogue site: an
AMASE'ing experience.
The
NASA and ESA 'Search for life' Mars missions scheduled for
the next decade require the development and thorough testing
of stringent analytical protocols and low-detection limit
technologies to enable the quantification of possible extant
or extinct biosignatures on Mars. In this lecture I will
discuss how such testing is carried out in extreme
terrestrial environments of the arctic. I will also show how
we have developed and applied field-based null-level
contamination free sampling and sample handling, and have
used spectral and microbiological approaches for
high-resolution quantification of mineralogy and
determination of low-level biosignatures.
Marian Holness
Towards an understanding of
microstructural development in partially melted crustal
rocks
Metamorphism commonly culminates in partial melting in the
crust, with associated effects on rock rheology and mass
transport. Teasing apart regional and contact metamorphic
events may therefore be dependent on interpreting
microstructures in partially melted quartzo-feldspathic
rocks. These encompass a wide and potentially bewildering
variation and in this lecture I will show how they are
affected by time-scales and pore size.
A textural record of cooling in layered mafic intrusions
Textures in mafic rocks are traditionally used to
distinguish between the early-formed liquidus phases
(cumulus) and later phases which grew in the interstices of
a crystal mush (intercumulus). In this lecture I will
demonstrate how the details of grain boundary orientations
within cumulate rocks record otherwise unaccessible
information about the cooling history and throw new light on
our understanding of the balance between latent and sensible
heat loss during cooling.
______________________________________________________________________________
The 2007-8 lecture programme is
now complete. Visits by Prof. J. Blundy and D.J. Vaughan
were well received and the project has been deemed a great
success.
Lecture given by Prof David Vaughan
Minerals, metals, molecules and
microbes: environmental mineralogy and sustainability
Metals have been central to human development since ancient
times, and play a critical role in the cycling of elements
at or near Earth’s surface.
Understanding the cycles involving metals is important in
studies of ore formation, pollution, and containment of
hazardous wastes. Studies of key stages in the cycling of
metals from the breakdown of metal-rich minerals, transport
in solution or as colloids, uptake on mineral surfaces, and
precipitation, will be illustrated with examples of work
done in Manchester using state-of-the-art techniques. These
include atomic resolution studies of mineral surfaces and
their reactivities using scanning probe microscopy, and
investigations of the evolution of colloidal precipitates,
or of sorption of metals on mineral surfaces, using
synchrotron radiation methods. The importance of biofilm
coatings on mineral surfaces will also be discussed, and
also of relating phenomena at the molecular (or nano) scale
to those at field, or even larger, scales.
Lecture given by Prof Jon Blundy
The subterranean
machinations of explosive volcanoes
Explosive volcanoes
are routinely monitored for signs of unrest. Deciphering the
signals, such as earthquakes, ground deformation or gas
chemistry, in terms of what is happening underground is not
straightforward and rarely unambiguous. As magma chambers
cannot be accessed directly our understanding of what goes
on inside them is limited to studying their erupted products
and attempting to link retrospectively the testimony of
crystals and glasses to the pre-eruptive monitoring record.
In this lecture I shall demonstrate the application of
petrology to understanding past, present and future volcanic
activity at Mount St. Helens volcano in the USA.
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