Here is my Goldschmidt summary part 3 comprising both day 3 and day 4. I had to prepare my own talk, that I gave on Thursday (day 4) so I had to put the blog on hold to practice. Here are a few of the most interesting talks that I went to: Fred Jourdan hailing all the way from Curtin University in South Australia gave a talk called – Volcanoes, asteroid impacts and mass extinctions (abstrac ...[Read More]
Goldschmidt 2013 – Day 2 – Carbon, Uranium, Litigation and London
Day 2 of Goldschmidt 2013 is done and what a great day it was. Hectic, but conferences always are. There is just so much to see and do, so many people to talk to and so many people to meet for the first time that it can be a bit overwhelming. The best thing to do is grab a coffee, and dive right in. My first talk of the day was by J. Schmitt and was called CF4 and CO2 – Coupling Weathering and Car ...[Read More]
Goldschmidt2013 – Day 1 (Monday)
Wow! I have finally arrived at Goldschmidt 2013 and it is so, so great to be here! Day 1 was already a whirlwind. Unfortunately, I missed the icebreaker last night and arrived a bit late this morning due to scheduling conflicts so I missed a few talks, but I am here now and ready to listen, learn, discuss and blog! Talks I went to today: Sadly, I missed the first talk I wanted to see. My friend, E ...[Read More]
The Bloggers of Goldschmidt 2013
It isn’t long until the start of the annual V.M. Goldschmidt conference, the main international meeting for geochemists to share and discuss ideas. This year’s meeting in Florence, Italy, is set to be one of the largest yet with over 4000 abstracts submitted. The European Association of Geochemistry and the organisers of this 23rd Goldschmidt meeting have assembled a team of writers from the geobl ...[Read More]
The Mysteries of Maqarin
We all know that cement is a man-made substance and therefore cement is always synthetic right? Wrong! In the unusual case of Maqarin, Jordan the stars aligned to produce natural cement and many of the “synthetic” minerals found therein. The Maqarin site has been the subject of an intense geological investigation by a consortium of over 100 researchers for years in an attempt to try an ...[Read More]
Guest Post – Mike Power – Using surficial geochemistry to detect buried mineral deposits
Finding the next big mineral deposit is a dream of many geologists past, present and future. However, in the past hundred years or so, many of them close to surface have already been found and developed. This is because they can be found relatively inexpensively by traditional methods such as geochemical surveys, shallow geophysics, drilling, and a lot of luck. In the 21st century, mineral explora ...[Read More]
Tools of the Trade
It is already May!! Crazy. Everyone in the department is incredibly busy right now trying to get all of those things on their winter to-do list checked off before it is time to head out to the field once again and re-fill the to-do list for next winter with sample prep, analysis and some interpretation. It is also time to start thinking of preparing for the field. Some of you hard rock folk might ...[Read More]
The Great Fracking Debate
Yesterday the “Great Fracking Debate” took place at EGU2013 and I tuned in via webstream for the royal rumble of good vs. evil that was sure to take place. I have to say I was a little disappointed (not really) because the tone of the debate was very respectful and sophisticated. I guess if I want to see a good verbal sparring match I’ll have to head over to Parliament and take i ...[Read More]
My EGU2013 (Tuesday)
Firstly, I am not actually attending EGU 2013 this year. However, that does not mean I can’t participate. In fact, it has been incredibly easy for to me join in, although I have had to wake up very early in the morning to make up for the time difference between Vienna and Ottawa. I took part in two press conferences on Tuesday. The first called: The consequences of nuclear accidents: Fukushi ...[Read More]
It’s rainin’ isotopes…
This post is kind of a continuation of Laura Roberts excellent guest post on the Solar Storms and the Earth’s Magnetic field. However, this is a bit of a different spin on it. I am not writing about what get’s kept out, but rather what slips by the shield and gets in. Of course, I am speaking about cosmic rays and the wonderfully useful isotopes they produce that rain down upon us. Yes ...[Read More]