GMPV
Geochemistry, Mineralogy, Petrology & Volcanology

Minerals

THE CHALLENGES OF DATING – GEOLOGISTS’ VERSION (part one)

July 19, 2024
THE CHALLENGES OF DATING – GEOLOGISTS’ VERSION (part one)
Heart-shaped minerals photomicrograph by Bernardo Cesare, from the Imaggeo archives.

When it comes to dating profiles, minerals can put up a really good face at first. But, as some of the users in dating apps out there, they might not be worthy of a second try, or maybe not even of a first depending on what your intentions are… To help out, we will tackle some of the main minerals used in geochronology, as if they were featured on online dating apps, plus some ‘red flags’ from pre ...[Read More]

GMPV Campfires – Call for Speakers

May 15, 2024
EGU GMPV Campfires - Call for Speakers
Image Credit: Valeria Belloni (distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu)

GMPV Campfires – Call for Speakers   The EGU Geochemistry, Mineralogy, Petrology and Volcanology ECS committee are currently looking for early career scientists to present at and attend our monthly online talk series (EGU Campfires).  The EGU Campfires are a free one-hour online seminar consisting of three to four 10-12-minute talks. These quick-fire presentations give you an opportunit ...[Read More]

Elemental etymology – what’s in a name?

June 7, 2023
Photo of a medieval medical manuscript translated from Arabic in the 2nd half of the 13th Century.
Al-Razi's Recueil des traités de médecine translated by Gerard of Cremona, from the second half of the 13th century. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Like many scientists in the GMPV sphere, I work a lot with geochemistry – using chemical elements and their differing behaviours, abundances or isotopes as tools to understand Earth processes. While staring at the periodic table, something that’s always niggled at me is where the names of these come from: why is the stuff we breath called oxygen and the sand on the beach made of silicon? Even more ...[Read More]

Machine Learning and Volcanic Crystals: a journey with Corin Jorgenson into Random Forest Thermobarometry

September 15, 2022
Frontpage_CorinJorgenson_Thermobarometry

Thermobarometry: a bit of background Being able to understand the eruptive style of a volcano, how the eruptive behavior can evolve over time and managing to better interpret the signals that a volcanic system gives us before an eruption are of fundamental importance for mitigating the risk associated with eruptive activities. In this context, it is extremely important to understand trans-crustal ...[Read More]