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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, Erin, from uOttawa presented her research at 9:30, while I was still in the Florence airport so I missed out on that one. Her work is titled Fluid Evolution Recorded by Alteration Minerals along the P2 Reverse Fault and Associated with the McArthur River U-Deposit and the abstract can be viewed here. Basically, water running along a fault making all sorts of strange minerals and carrying lots of radioactive goodness.

So the first talk that I actually watched was by Mitch Kerr from Saint Mary’s University and was entitled Preliminary Evaluation of Trace Hydrocarbon Speciation and Abundance as an Exploration Tool for Footwall-Style Sulfide Ore, Sudbury Igneous Complex, Ontario, Canada (abstract). The talk raised some fascinating points about using the occurrence of light, thermogenic hydrocarbons as a possible took for exploration of platinum group elements in the Sudbury Impact Crater. Indeed, the results showing the different types of light hydrocarbons and their relationship to ore bearing zones was very promising.

Next was a talk by Wooyong Um from Pacific Northwest National Lab about Limited releases of U and Tc from Hanford tank residual wastes (abstract). The talk explored how to safely close radioactive waste storage tanks located at the Hanford site. The waste will be moved to a long term repository, but some sludge will remain on the bottom that contains high concentrations of uranium and technetium. This talk compared the efficacy of three methods for immobilizing the U and Tc that remains in the tanks by creating minerals that will bind the U and Tc and make it unavailable to groundwater leaching. The authors found that all three techniqies they attempted were successful and preventing leaching of U and Tc. So a good news story all around!

I then speed walked over to another session where keynote speaker M.O. Andreae from the Max Plank Institute was asking if any answers were blowing in the wind. Seriously though he was Can Saharan dust explain extensive clay deposits in the Amazon Basin? Radiogenic isotopes as tracers of transatlantic transport (abstract). He attempted to answer this question using a number of isotopic and geochemical methods. He used total geochemistry, lead, strontium and neodymium isotopes to show that unambiguously the Amazon clay does not come from Saharan dust despite visual evidence showing it across the Atlantic. Indeed, the source of the Amazon clay deposits turned out to be the high rate of weathering of the bedrock due to the humid conditions. However, Dr. Andreae also found that the despite the fact the clay is not from the Sahara a substantial amount of the nutrient potassium is transported to the Amazon from the Sahara. Very cool!

The last talk for me but not least was by fellow Canadian Chris Weisener from the Unversity of Windsor. His talk: Bacterial Mineral-Metaloid Redox Transformations in Anaerobic Environments (abstract) covered how bacteria can influence the uptake of heavy metals into the mineral jarosite, which is found in many low pH, iron/suplhur rich environments. Indeed, almost all mine drainage sites have jarosite. Chris showed that metals such as selenium can actually be incorporated into the jarosite mineral structure by bacteria which reduce them for food and in doing so make these metals available for incorporation.

I followed this up with a quick visit to the Goldschmidt press conference to hear about the work of Victor Sharygin of the Institute of Geology and Mineralogy in Novosibirsk, Russia. Dr. Sharygin talked about how the Chelyabinsk meteorite may have had a brush with the Sun before falling to Earth because it shows signs of having been melted prior to colliding with Earth. Furthermore, the meteorite also contained some very interesting and unusual mineralogy and mineral morphology such as sceptors made of platinum, osmium and iridium in the fusion crust of the meteorite. This press release has already picked up some international coverage and more complete articles can be found here.

Thanks for reading. I am excited for what great discoveries Day 2 will hold.

Cheers,

Matt

Goldschmidt2013

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 geoblogosphere to cover the science and social activities of the conference. Here is that team, meet Andy, Betsy, Emma, Matt and Simon. Follow our coverage of Goldschmidt 2013 here on the EAG blog and on twitter, using the #Goldschmidt2013 hashtag.

Andy Bray

University of Leeds, UK

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I’m a Ph.D. candidate working in Cohen Geochemistry, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, investigating the processes and rates of mineral weathering by soil dwelling micro-organisms. Generally, I’m interested in anything that involves life interacting with rock. That covers things from micron scale biogeo interactions, contaminant geochemistry, Critical Zone processes, global (bio)geochemical cycling and even a bit of astrobiology. In addition to my oral presentation (Thursday 16:45, 10j), I’ll be attending sessions with bio-geo themes and writing on some of the interesting presentations I see. I’m relatively new to blogging and alongside helping to set up the Cohen Geochemistry Users’ Blog, I (sporadically) post articles on the EAG Blog and Tumblr. I will be tweeting throughout Goldschmidt and you can follow me @Brayaw. Come and find me in Florence and talk to me about science or tell me a bad joke, either way I’ll enjoy it. See you at the icebreaker!

Betsy Swanner

University of Tübingen, Germany

Greetings from Tuebingen where I am busy preparing for this year’s

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Goldschmidt meeting. It will be my fifth trip to Goldschmidt, and is always one of the highlights of my professional year. It is however, my first experience as an official blogger, but I have gained some experience writing for the EAG Blog already this year. One of the aspects I am looking forward to most is convening a session for the first time – Session 9e: “Life in ferruginous settings: building the bridge between sedimentology and geomicrobiology”. You can find me at our posters on Wednesday afternoon (164 to 169) and the orals on Thursday afternoon (L05), along with co-conveners Nicole Posth of NordCEE-University of Southern Denmark and Bertus Smith of the University of Johannesburg. I will also be presenting my current postdoctoral research, which investigates the impact of Archean levels of dissolved iron on the growth of a marine cyanobacterium (Session 19e: Phototrophic Life and Earth’s Redox Evolution). See you in Florence!

Emma Versteegh

University of Reading, UK

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I’m a post-doc working at the Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences, University of Reading. My current research focuses on carbonates produced by earthworms, and if they can be used as a proxy for past climate and environments. My broader interests range from stable isotope chemistry to marine ecology, palaeoclimatology and archaeology. Although I have written some short entries on my own blog Silent Witnesses and occasionally tweet as @emmaversteegh, this is the first time I’m having a go at blogging for a conference. Quite exciting! It is also the first time I’m convening a session, with my PI Mark Hodson: 19j The Role of Biominerals in Biogeochmical Cycling, in which Mark will present some of our recent findings on the role of earthworm-produced calcium carbonate in the terrestrial carbon cycle. I will present a poster on Wednesday on Pleistocene and Holocene Temperature Reconstructions Using Earthworm-Produced Calcite. I’m very much looking forward to Goldschmidt 2013 and hope to meet many of you there.

Matt Herod

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University of Ottawa, Canada

I’m Ph.D. Candidate working with Dr. Ian Clark in the Department of Earth Science at the University of Ottawa. My research focuses on the environmental geochemistry of iodine and the radioactive isotope iodine-129. This work involves characterizing a 129I baseline in the Canadian Arctic and applying this to the transport and sources of 129I to remote regions as well as to long term radioactive waste disposal. I also work on the transport and fate of 129I from the Fukushima Daichii Nuclear Accident. At this Goldschmidt I’ll be found in aqueous and isotope geochemistry sessions listening to all of the great work that has been going on, and blogging about what I learn at my EGU network blog, GeoSphere. I’ll also be tweeting as @GeoHerod. My own talk is in session 18j: Geochemical and Biological Fate of Anthropogenic Radionuclides. I’ll be speaking on Thursday afternoon about my work on the rainout of 129I from Fukushima and its transfer into groundwater on the west coast of Canada. Hope to see you in Florence!!

Simon Redfern

University of Cambridge, UK

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I’m a Mineral Physicist, which means I enjoy applying an understanding of the properties of Earth materials at the atomic scale to a wide range of problems across Earth’s history, on global scale. By studying interactions across varying length scales and time scales I aim to under stand how our planet works. I will be talking at Goldschmidt on Monday afternoon, about how synchrotron X-rays can be used to image the geochemistry of plankton calcite shells at the nanoscale. This year I have enjoyed a stint as a British Science Association media fellow, which has involved working at the BBC Science & Environment desk learning about science communication, and I also blog on the EGU network. All this activity started as blog at Geopoem for my students, and I post things there still. I’ll be tweeting, when I have a moment, as @Sim0nRedfern.

We’re aiming to provide a wide coverage of Goldschmidt 2013 via our blogging and tweeting, but make sure you also keep an eye out for the official press releases coming throughout the week.

Welcome New EGU Bloggers

The EGU blog network has been running for about 10 months and has been a great experience for me so far. The blog network has now expanded with 6 new blogs, covering a variety of topics, and I’d like to take this opportunity to welcome the new EGU bloggers! In no particular order they are:

1. Flo Bullough (@flo_dem) and Marion Ferrat (@mle_marion) will be writing about climate and environmental policy at Four Degrees

2. Laura Roberts (@LauRob85) and Daniel Schillereff (@dschillereff) will be blogging about Quaternary geoscience at Geology Jenga 

3. Will Morgan (@willtmorgan) will be writing about atmospheric science and aerosols at Polluting the Internet

4. Simon Redfern (@Sim0nRedfern) with be sharing all things mineralogy at An Atom’s-Eye View of the Planet 

5. Elspeth Robertson (@eamrobertson) and Charly Stamper (@C_Stamper) will be blogging about volcanology at Between a Rock and a Hard Place

6. Antonio Jordan will be spreading the soil science word at G-Soil

So pull up a chair everyone and grab a cup of coffee/tea. There is some reading to catch up on!!!!!

 

p.s. I don’t know why everyone’s twitter handles appear with strikethrough? They all still work.

 

The Accretionary Wedge #58 – Signs

For this AW I had originally drawn a blank. I don’t have that many pictures of signs in my photo collection and most of them really aren’t that interesting anyways. However, I was struck by a flash of inspiration on a hike in Gatineau Park last night. My girlfriend and I were doing the beautiful King Mountain trail plus a nice add on loop that took us off the beaten path as well. While doing to the King loop though, we came across an interesting sign that I thought would be worth sharing and make a nice contribution to July’s Accretionary Wedge at Georneys.

(Photo: Matt Herod)

Canada’s very first geodetic reference point! It is a now a national historic site. (Photo: Matt Herod)

The sign/cairn pictured here shows the location of the very first point in the Geodetic Survey of Canada in 1905. The site is now a national historic site as well as one of practical value. Geodesy today is much more complex than it was in the past, but the basic aims remain the same. The purpose of geodesy is to measure and describe the shape of the Earth, called the geoid, and understand the factors that affect its shape such as glaciations, tides, and gravity. In order to do this most countries have developed a geodetic network that defines the precise position and elevation of a variety of reference points. These points can then be used to characterize the shape of the earth very precisely as well as observe any changes that could result due to changes in the Earth’s gravity field or isostatic uplift.

Geologists rely very heavily on geodesy in order to make maps, plot samples, investigate climate change, do geophysical work, hydrogeology, etc. The list goes on and on for why geologists depend on geodesy and why these two disciplines are extremely interrelated. It is not only for applied geology that geodesy is relevant though. Most of us use geodesy and benefit from its contributions daily. The big one that I am sure everyone is familiar with are global positioning systems aka. GPS, which use the coordinate systems and geoid provided by geodesy to navigate.

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A close up of the information plaque. In both official languages, of course. (Photo: Matt Herod)

There was a pretty nice view from the cairn. (Photo: Matt Herod)

One great example of geodesy in action is how by using the control network of points around Canada the geodetic survey of Canada has been able to plot how much certain parts of the country are rising or falling due to isostatic rebound.

Next time you are reading a map or listening to instructions from your GPS, think about the field of geodesy that made the whole thing possible.

Cheers,

Matt