In this blog I’m going to talk a bit about one of my favourite rocks – the strangest rock you’ve probably never heard of – listvenite. Listvenite (sometimes spelt listwanite or listwaenite) is the product of a chemical reaction between peridotite and carbon dioxide, and it is truly strange! I first came across listvenites working on the Semail Ophiolite, Oman, during my PhD. The Semail Ophiolite i ...[Read More]
During this past October, a team of researchers took part in a “hackathon” organised by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to generate data and new ideas to increase diversity in geoscience. This was an extremely hectic, sometimes stressful but fun and illuminating experience which ultimately culminated in a pilot funding bid (which we learned this week has been successful!). Our i ...[Read More]
The mantle makes up the bulk of Earth, extending from near the surface to the edge of the core 2900 km down. It constitutes 84% of Earth’s volume and has roughly 6 times the mass of Mars! Despite its impressive bulk, the mantle is almost everywhere covered by several km of crust. As a result we don’t have a lot of pieces of it that we can look at, hold or study. Those we have (e.g. xenoliths ...[Read More]