Geochemistry, Mineralogy, Petrology & Volcanology

Drilling in the deep: Project Mohole and the underground space race

Elliot Carter July 28, 2021

The drilling derrick of the IODP ship DV Chikyu - winches are used to lift the drill string up section by section (Image credit: E. Carter)

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]

EGU GMPV Campfires: See you in September!

GMPV ECS Campfires Team July 20, 2021

Blueschist rind from Syros - Greece. Photo by Jesse Walters.

The GMPV Campfires will take a summer break and will be back in September! We would like to thank all the speakers for sharing their science with the GMPV community and all the attendees for participating and helping to improve the discussion so far. Our goal is to create a network of early career scientists, both within GMPV and among EGU Divisions, so your contribution is precious! Let’s k ...[Read More]

A lava for (almost) every colour

Simona Gabrielli June 30, 2021

Blue Lava at Kawah Ijen volcano, Indonesia. Photo by Martin Rietz

When we think about a volcanic eruption, one of the first things that come to our mind are lava fountains and flows with a characteristic bright orange and red colour. The colour of lavas can be associated with the temperature reached at the surface: dark red at low temperatures (475°C), orange at 900°C and white at extremely high temperature (>1150°C) (Kilburn, 2000). However, some places on E ...[Read More]

Rare Earth Elements…..in olivine?

Mike Jollands June 16, 2021

The Rare Earth Elements, or REEs, are really important. This is a group of elements including neodymium (used to create strong magnets), cerium (used in catalytic converters), lanthanum (used in electric car batteries), lutetium (used in oil refinery), with the uses of REEs increasing continuously. At the moment, the majority of the world’s supply of REEs comes from a single deposit in Inner ...[Read More]