NEWSLETTER
No. 3: Dec 2014
INSTITUTE OF EARTH &
PLANETARY SCIENCES
(July – November)
Edited by Andy Carter & Leisa Clemente
Welcome to the 3rd Newsletter of the joint UCL‐Birkbeck Institute for Earth and Planetary Sciences (IEPS) http://www.ucl.ac.uk/earth‐planetary‐institute. Recent Activities
Awards
Publications
Talks and Lectures
RECENT ACTIVITIES
The conference Co‐Evolution of Life and the Planet Future perspectives in Earth System Science took place between November 5th‐8th, 2014 at the Geological Society of London, Burlington House, organised by Ying Zhou. More than 130 participants took part in the meeting which showcased co‐evolutionary research in deep time across multiple time intervals from the Precambrian to the Cenozoic, and began with a talk by Lee Kump (Penn State) followed by a very pleasant ice breaker party at UCL’s Grant Museum. Impact and Media
IEPS staff were a major presence at a recent UK/China scoping workshop in Chengdu, China on November 19th‐22nd, 2014. Five IEPS staff attended the meeting entitled Developing collaborations in the PhD Student News
Natural and Social Sciences in the areas of Geohazards, Palaeontology and Geofluids (volatiles). The purpose of the meeting Forthcoming Meetings
was 1) to define the scope of a new UK/China, interdisciplinary call, and Seminars supported by the Newton Fund, with a focus on increasing social and economic resilience to disasters resulting from earthquakes and associated hazards (e.g. landslides and mudflows) as part of the NERC/ESRC funded Increasing Resilience to Natural Hazards (IRNH) programme (scientific advisor: Peter Sammonds); 2) To showcase work done under the NERC Long Term Co‐
Evolution of Life and the Planet programme (manager: Ying Zhou), together with relevant programmes in China and discuss future ideas (scientific coordinator: Graham Shields); 3). To explore opportunities for potential future collaboration in the areas of geohazards, palaeontology and geofluids (scientific coordinator: John Brodholt) and where appropriate, their associated social dimensions. Major outcomes from the meeting include the formulation of an imminent NERC/NSFC joint call in the field of geohazards; agreement to co‐fund a scoping workshop to do something similar in the field of palaeobiodiversity and palaeoenvironmental research; and various joint activities (field excursions, workshops) in the field of geofluids (volatiles in and from the deep Earth). Cities on Volcanoes. The UCL Hazard Centre drives new multidisciplinary initiatives for mitigating the impact of volcanic eruptions. The UCL Hazard Centre has been invited to found the section on economic hazards from volcanism as part of IAVCEI's* new Commission on Volcanic Hazard and Risk. The section will be launched in 2015 to stimulate co‐
Institute for Earth and Planetary Sciences 1
operation among academic, business and governmental sectors with the aim of improving the understanding, assessment and mitigation of economic loss from volcanic activity. The invitation was the culmination of a successful week in September at IAVCEI’s 2014 Cities on Volcanoes conference in Yogyakarta in Indonesia – the country with the largest number of historically active volcanoes. Centre members Christopher Kilburn and Stephen Edwards convened sessions on the impact of volcanic eruptions on business activity (the first of its kind at IAVCEI) and on managing volcanic emergencies and, together with Melanie Duncan, Robert Robertson, Rosa Sobradelo and Richard Wall, contributed to nine presentations across the entire week on topics from forecasting volcanic eruptions and decision‐making during emergencies, through mitigating the hazards from lahars and lava flows, to visualising risk for non‐
scientific stakeholders, including local communities, non‐
governmental organisations and the business sector. *The International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Sindoro volcano in Central Java rises to more than 3,000 m Interior (IAVCEI) is the premier international body for promoting global above sea level. It has erupted eight times in the past 200 research into pure and applied volcanology. years and remains a threat to the surrounding plantations and paddy fields (Photo: C.R.J. Kilburn) To dam or be damned? The UCL Hazard Centre evaluates the environmental costs of mega‐dam projects. As part of the UCL‐CAFOD Partnership established and run by the Hazard Centre since 2008, Regis Garandeau, Stephen Edwards and Mark Maslin have produced an interdisciplinary report examining the controversy surrounding the development and operation of large dams and their associated reservoirs. These dams undeniably provide benefits, such as flood control and water for irrigation and hydroelectricity, but they also have numerous negatives impacts that include fragmentation of rivers, displacement of people, loss of land and flooding. The report provides a contemporary overview of the debate and is intended, in particular, to help the Centro de Investigación y Promoción del Campesinado (CIPCA) and the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) with their advocacy on mega‐dam projects in Bolivia and the Amazon basin. The report is available at www.ucl.ac.uk/hazardscentre/research/Water_resources_folder/assessments_of_large_dams. AWARDS, APPOINTMENTS AND INVITED KEYNOTES
Dario Alfè won a NERC standard grant: Chemical interactions in the Earth's core; PI: Dario Alfè, researcher co‐I: Monica Pozzo, £ 479,212, plus £ 270,180 for access to facilities (national supercomputer ARCHER). Dario Alfè won a Department of Energy, U.S.A., Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) award; PI Dario Alfè, co‐I's Mike Gillan, Angelos Michaelides, Mike Towler, Ken Jordan, Anatole von Lilienfeld, Alexandre Tkatchenko, 148 million processor hours (cost of this facility on ARCHER would be £1,243,200). Graham Shields‐Zhou was awarded one of 22 Jiangsu Province Friendship Awards for 2014. Presented at a ceremony in Nanjing on September 19th 2014 by Vice Governor Lei of Jiangsu Province, the "Jiangsu Friendship Award" is the highest award of Jiangsu Provincial People's Government for foreign experts. It is given in recognition of outstanding contributions to Jiangsu Province with regard to economic progress and social development. http://www.nigpas.cas.cn/xwzx/zhxw/201409/t20140922_4210747.html. Karen Hudson‐Edwards won a NERC Urgency grant. £64.5k, on 'The environmental impact of the Mount Polley mine tailings spill and related clean‐up operations, British Columbia, Canada.' 15 Oct 2014 ‐ 14 Sep 2015. Institute for Earth and Planetary Sciences 2
Karen Hudson‐Edwards awarded £21k by NERC to use the Facility for Environmental Nanoparticle Analysis and Characterisation (FENAC). 'Characterisation of Nanometre‐Sized Aluminium Sulphates: Implications for Mobility of Aluminium from Mine Wastes'. Peter Grindrod has been appointed to the UK Space Agency Aurora Science review panel and outreach panel. Adrian Jones awarded a UCL Research Catalyst Grant (£7,500) Gibbs, B. (STEaPP), Hilson, M. (Scandinavian Studies) and Jones, A.P. (Earth Sciences) “Stewardship of Greenland’s Rare Earth Elements”. Peter Sammonds was an OECD external review panel member of the General Earthquake Model (GEM), 5th to 6th May 2014, Pavia, Italy. Tom Mitchell and Nicolas Brantut won a NERC standard grant of £750,000 for "Earthquake fracture damage and feedbacks in the seismic cycle: a multidisciplinary study”. Kevin Pickering has been appointed official ECORD (European Consortium for Ocean Research) alternate to the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) SEP (Science Evaluation Panel). Pieter Vermeesch has been awarded £119,337 by the Leverhulme Trust for “Determining erosion rates to revive the LOREX neutrino experiment (Macedonia)”. NEW MEMBERS
IEPS welcomes the following researchers; Dr Elliot Sefton‐Nash (formerly at UCLA) will be working with Peter Grindrod on landing site selection for the ESA 2018 ExoMars rover. Started 01/10/14. Dr Cui Hang (from 01/07/14 ‐ 30/06/17) ‐ Research Associate in Computational Modelling of Earth Materials working with Lars Stixrude. Grant Heiken has joined the Hazard Centre as an Honorary Professor in UCL Earth Sciences. Grant worked for NASA during the Apollo programme and pioneered investigations into mechanisms of magma fragmentation and the emplacement of pyroclastic deposits. His current research includes the risk to cities from volcanic eruptions. Professor Dan Osborn (from 01/06/14) ‐ Professor of Human Ecology. Dr Andrew Thomson (from 20/10/14 ‐ 19/10/16) ‐ Research Associate in the Effect of Volatiles on Mantle Minerals working with John Brodholt. Dr Bing Xiao (from 01/09/14 ‐ 31/08/17) ‐ Research Associate in Computational Modelling of Earth Materials working with Lars Stixrude. TALKS AND LECTURES
7th–9th July, Peter Sammonds‐Co‐convenor, Sustainable Resource Development in the Himalaya, 7th‐9th July, 2014, Geological Society, London, Leh, Ladakh, India. rd
th
3 ‐30 July, Kevin Pickering attended the IODP Expedition 338 post‐cruise meeting in Hawaii and IODP‐related meetings in Japan. 20th‐25th July, Charlie Bristow gave a talk at the International Conference on Aeolian Research (ICAR) at Lanzou China. th
15 ‐26th August, Kevin Pickering gave a keynote at the 29th International Sedimentological Congress, Geneva Switzerland. 25th‐29th August, Phillip Pogge von Strandman and Eric Oelkers participated in the ICC 2014, The International Carbon Conference held in Reykjavík, Iceland. th
19 ‐22nd October, Bridget Wade gave the Paleontological Society 2014 Schuchert Talk at the Geological Society of America Annual Meeting in Vancouver. Andy Carter gave a talk on the uplift history of North Vietnam. Institute for Earth and Planetary Sciences 3
2nd‐7th November, Kevin Pickering was an invited (all costs covered) research scientist to the ExxonMobil "Process Stratigraphy Breakthrough Project Workshop" held in Barcelona, Spain. The objective was to generate a set of concepts, tools, and methods that will be used to generate 3‐D models, which predict sub‐seismic reservoir stratigraphy and permeability extremes through simulation of sediment transport, deposition, and erosion. The current focus is on deep‐water fans. 7th‐10th November, Peter Sammonds was invited to the workshop: Tohoku Forum for Creativity: International Workshop on Implementing of Practical Disaster Risk Reduction, 2014, International Research Institute of Disaster Science (IRIDeS), Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan. OUTREACH AND PUBLIC LECTURES
19th October, Ian Crawford spoke on "To boldly go: what is the point of space exploration?" at the 2014 Battle of Ideas Festival at the Barbican in London. 24th October, Peter Grindrod and Elliot Sefton‐Nash gave invited presentations at Airbus Defence and Space, Stevenage, to the teams building the ExoMars rover. 4th October, Pete Sammonds was Invited speaker: The Lost World of Ladakh: Sustaining the Future, Geological Society, London. 2014 REF The REF results will be made public on the 18th December. Institutions will receive their own results, under embargo, on the 16th December and on the 17th December at 9am institutions will be given all the information for all HEIs. No information relating to individual staff members’ submissions is being released by the REF. PUBLICATIONS
(* student author)
*Alexander, L.*, Snape, J.F., Crawford, I.A., Joy, K.H. and Downes, H., 2014. Searching for non‐local lithologies in the Apollo 12 regolith: a geochemical and petrological study of basaltic coarse fines from the Apollo lunar soil sample 12023,155. Meteoritics and Planetary Science, 49, 1288‐1304. Alfè, D., Bartok, A., Csanyi, G. and Gillan, M.J., 2014. Analyzing the errors of DFT approximations for compressed water systems. Journal of Chemical Physics, 141, 014104. Al‐Hamdani, Y., Alfè, D., von Lilienfeld, O.A. and Michaelides, A., 2014. Water on BN doped benzene: A hard test for exchange‐correlation functionals and the impact of exact exchange on weak binding. Journal of Chemical Physics, 141, 18C530. Aze, T., Pearson, P.N., Dickson, A.J., Badger, M.P.S., Bown, P.R., Pancost, R.D., Gibbs, S.J., Huber, B.T., Leng, M.J., Coe, A.L., Cohen, A.S. and Foster, G.L., 2014. Extreme warming of tropical waters during the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum. Geology, 42(9), 739‐742, doi:10.1130/G35637.1. Bamford, R.A., Kellett, B., Bradford, J., Todd, T.A., Benton Sr., M.G., Stafford‐Allen, R., Alves, E.P., Silva, L., Collingwood, C., Crawford, I.A. and Bingham, R., 2014. An exploration of the effectiveness of artificial mini‐magnetospheres as a potential solar storm shelter for long term human space missions. Acta Astronautica, 105, 385‐394. Bown, P.R., Gibbs, S.J., Sheward, R., O’Dea, S.A. and Higgins, D., 2014. Searching for cells: the potential of fossil coccospheres in coccolithophore research. Journal of Nannoplankton Research, 34, 5‐21. Brown, R., Summerfield, M., Gleadow, A., Gallagher, K., Carter, A., Beucher, R., and Wildman, M., 2014. Intracontinental deformation in southern Africa during the late Cretaceous. Journal of African Earth Sciences, doi:10.1016/j.jafrearsci.2014.05.014. Cantalejo, B.* and Pickering, K.T., 2014. Climate forcing of fine‐grained deep‐marine systems in an active tectonic setting: Middle Eocene, Ainsa Basin, Spanish Pyrenees. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 410, 351‐371. Cartwright‐Taylor, A.*, Vallianatos, F. and Sammonds, P., 2014. Superstatistical view of stress‐induced electric current Institute for Earth and Planetary Sciences 4
fluctuations in rocks. Physica A, 414, 368–377. Chen, J., Ren, X., Li, X.‐Z., Alfè, D. and Wang, E., 2014. On the room‐temperature phase diagram of high pressure hydrogen: An ab initio molecular dynamics perspective and a diffusion Monte Carlo study. Journal of Chemical Physics, 141, 024501. Cohen, R.E. and Lin, Y., 2014. Prediction of a potential high‐pressure structure of FeSiO3. Phys. Rev. B Rapid Communications, 90, 140102(R). Crawford, I.A. and Joy, K.H., 2014. Lunar Exploration: Opening a Window into the History and Evolution of the Inner Solar System. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, A372: 20130315, 1‐21. Crawford, I.A., Joy, K.H. and Anand, M., 2014. Lunar Exploration. In: Spohn, T., Johnson, T.V., Breuer, D. (eds.) The Encyclopedia of the Solar System, Chapter 25, 3rd edition, Springer; 555‐579. Diot, X., El‐Maarry, M.R., Schlunegger, F., Norton, K.P., Thomas, N. and Grindrod, P.M., 2014. Banded Terrain in Hellas Basin, Mars: Results from Geomorphological Investigations and Morphometry. Plan. Space Sci., 101, 118‐134, doi:10.1016/j.pss.2014.06.013. Downes, H., de Vries, C. and Wittig, N., 2014. Hf–Zr anomalies in clinopyroxene from mantle xenoliths from France and Poland: implications for Lu–Hf dating of spinel peridotite lithospheric mantle. Int. Journal of Earth Sciences, doi: 10.1007/s00531‐014‐1074‐x. Downes, H., Abernethy, F.A.J., Smith, C.L., Ross, A.J., Verchovsky, A.B., Grady, M.M., Jenniskens, P. and Shaddad, M.H., 2014. Isotopic Composition of Carbon and Nitrogen in Ureilitic Fragments of the Almahata Sitta Meteorite. Meteoritics and Planetary Sciences. Garandeau, R., Edwards, S.J. and Maslin, M., 2014. Biophysical, socioeconomic and geopolitical impacts assessments of large dams: an overview. Aon Benfield UCL Hazard Centre, London, 16 pp. Gaunt, H.E.*, Sammonds, P.R., Meredith, P.G., Smith, R. and Pallister, J.S., 2014. Pathways for degassing during the lava dome eruption of Mount St. Helens, 2004−2008. Geology, 42, 947‐950, doi: 10.1130/G35940.1. Grindrod, P.M. and Warner, N.H., 2014. Erosion rate and previous extent of interior layered deposits on Mars revealed by obstructed landslides. Geology, 42, 795‐798, doi:10.1130/G35790.1 (OPEN ACCESS). Hemley, R.J., Struzhkin, V.V., Cohen, R.E. and Shen, G., 2014. Theory and practice – Measuring high‐pressure electronic and magnetic properties. In: Stixrude, L. (ed.) Treatise on Geophysics, 2nd edition, Elsevier, in press. Hunt, S.A., Weidner, D.J., McCormack, R. J., Whitaker, M.L., Bailey, E., Li, L., Vaughan, M.T. and Dobson, D.P., 2014. Deformation T‐Cup: A new multi‐anvil apparatus for controlled strain‐rate deformation experiments at pressures above 18 GPa. Rev. Sci. Instrum., 85, 085103, doi: 10.1063/1.4891338. Hudson‐Edwards, K.A., Bristow, C.S., Cibin, G., Mason, G. and Peacock, C.L., 2014. Solid‐phase phosphorus speciation in Saharan Bodele Depression dusts and source sediments. Chemical Geology, 384, 16‐26. Jimenez Berrocoso, A., Huber, B.T., MacLeod, K.G., Petrizzo, M., Lees, J.A., Wendler, I., Coxall, H., Mweneinda, A.K., Falzoni, F., Birch, H., Haynes, S., Bown, P.R., Robinson, S.A. and Singano, J.M., 2014. The Lindi Formation (upper Albian‐Coniacian) and Tanzania Drilling Project Sites 36‐40 (Lower Cretaceous to Paleogene): lithostratigraphy, biostratigraphy and chemostratigraphy. Journal of African Earth Sciences, 101, 282–308, dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jafrearsci.2014.09.017. Jones A.P., 2014. Impact volcanism and mass extinctions Geological Society of America Special Papers, 505, 369‐381, doi:10.1130/2014.2505(19). Kossoff, D.*, Dubbin, W.E., Alfredsson, M., Edwards, S.J., Macklin, M.G., Hudson‐Edwards, K.A., 2014. Mine tailings dams: characteristics, failure, environmental impacts, and remediation. Applied Geochemistry, 51, 229‐245. Kennedy, W.J., Gale, A.S., Huber, B.T., Petrizzo, M.R., Bown, P.R., Barchetta, A. and Jenkyns, H.C., 2014. Integrated stratigraphy across the Aptian‐Albian boundary at Col de Pré‐Guittard (southeast France): A candidate Global Boundary Stratotype Section. Cretaceous Research, 58, 248‐259. Lin, Y., Cohen, R.E., Stackhouse, S., Driver, K.P., Militzer, B., Shulenburger, L. and Kim, J., 2014. Equations of state and stability of MgSiO3 perovskite and post‐perovskite phases from quantum Monte Carlo simulations. Phys. Rev. B, in press. Linnert, C., Mutterlose, J. and Bown, P.R., 2014. Biometry of Upper Cretaceous (Cenomanian–Maastrichtian) coccoliths – a record of long‐term stability and interspecies size shifts. Revue de micropaléontologie, dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.revmic.2014.09.001. Linnert, C., Robinson, S.A., Lees, J.A., Bown, P.R., Pérez‐Rodríguez, I., Petrizzo, M.R., Falzoni, F., Littler. K., Arz, J.A. and Russell, E.E., 2014. Evidence for global cooling in the Late Cretaceous. Nature Communications, 5, 4194, doi: 10.1038/ncomms5194. Littler, K., Robinson, S.A. and Bown, P.R., 2014. An offset in TEX86 values between interbedded lithologies: Implications Institute for Earth and Planetary Sciences 5
for sea‐surface temperature reconstructions. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 399, 42‐51. Lord, O.T., Wann, E., Hunt, S.A., Walker, A.M., Santangeli, J.*, Walter, M.J., Dobson, D.P., Wood, I.G., Vočadlo, L., Morard, G. and Mezouar, M., 2014. The NiSi melting curve to 70 GPa. Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors, 233, 13–23, doi: 10.1016/j.pepi.2014.05.005. McGuire, W.J., 2014. Global Catastrophes: A Very Short Introduction, 2nd Edition, Revised. Oxford University Press, pp 152. Mandal, S., Cohen, R.E. and Haule, K, Strong pressure‐dependent electron‐phonon coupling in FeSe. Phys. Rev. B Rapid Communications, 89, 220502(R). Mandal, S., Cohen, R.E. and Haule, K., 2014. Pressure suppression of electron correlation in the collapsed tetragonal phase of CaFe2Se2: A DFT‐DMFT investigation. Phys. Rev. B, 060501(R). Michas, G., Sammonds, P. and Vallianatos, F., 2014. Dynamic Multifractality in Earthquake Time Series: Insights from the Corinth Rift, Greece. Pure Appl. Geophys., doi: 10.1007/s00024‐014‐0875. Moore, T.C., Jr., Wade, B.S., Westerhold, T., Erhardt, A.M., Coxall, H.K., Baldauf, J. and Wagner, M., 2014. Equatorial Pacific productivity changes near the Eocene‐Oligocene boundary. Paleoceanography, 29, 825‐844, doi:10.1002/2014PA002656. Mueller, H.J., Beckmann, F., Dobson, D.P., Hunt, S.A., Lathe, C. and Stroncik, N., 2014. New techniques for high pressure falling sphere viscosimetry in DIA‐type large volume presses. High Pressure Research, 34(3), 345‐354, doi: 10.1080/08957959.2014.950262. Omiciulo, L., Hernandez, E.R., Miniussi, E., Orlando, F., Lacovig, R., Lizzit, S., Mentes, T.O., Locatelli, A., Larciprete, R., Bianchi, M., Ulstrup, S., Hofmann, P., Alfè, D. and Baraldi, A., 2014. Bottom‐up approach for the low‐cost synthesis of graphene‐alumina nanosheet interfaces using bimetallic alloys. Nature Communications, 5, 5062, 1‐8, doi:10.1038/ncomms6062. Papadakis, G., Vallianatos, F. and Sammonds, P., 2014. A nonextensive statistical physics analysis of the 1995 Kobe, Japan Earthquake. Pure Appl. Geophys., doi:10.1007/s00024‐014‐0876. Pogge von Strandmann, P.A.E., Coath, C.D., Catling, D.C., Poulton, S.W. and Elliott, T., 2014. Analysis of mass dependent and mass independent selenium isotope variability in black shales. Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry, 29, 1648‐1659, doi: 10.1039/c4ja00124a. Pogge von Strandmann, P.A.E., Forshaw, J. and Schmidt, D.N., 2014. Modern and Cenozoic records of seawater magnesium from foraminiferal Mg isotopes. Biogeosciences, 11, 5155‐5168, doi:10.5194/bg‐11‐5155‐2014. Pogge von Strandmann, P.A.E., Porcelli, D., James, R.H., van Calsteren, P., Schaefer, B., Cartwright, I., Reynolds, B.C. and Burton, K.W., 2014. Chemical weathering processes in the Great Artesian Basin: Evidence from lithium and silicon isotopes. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 406, 24‐36, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2014.09.014. Poole, W., Muller, J.‐P., Gupta, S. and Grindrod, P.M., 2014. Calibrating Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter Pulse widths at Mars Science Laboratory Candidate landing sites. Plan. Space Sci., 99, 118‐227, doi:10.1016/j.pss.2014.05.012. Prentice, K., Dunkly Jones, T., Lees, J.A., Young, J., Bown, P.R., Langer, G., Fearn, S., 2014. Trace metal (Mg/Ca and Sr/Ca) analyses of single coccoliths. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 146, 90‐106, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2014.09.041. Quingley, D., Alfè, D. and Slater, B., 2014. On the stability of ice. Journal of Chemical Physics, 141, 161102. Smith, A.G., Barry, T., Bown, P.R., Cope, J., Gale, A., Gibbard, P., Gregory, J., Hounslow, M., Kemp, D., Knox, R., Marshall, J., Oates, M., Rawson, P., Powell, J. and Waters, C., 2014. GSSPs, global stratigraphy and correlation. In: Smith, D.G., Bailey, R.J., Burgess, P.M. and Fraser, A.J. (eds) Strata and Time: Probing the Gaps in Our Understanding. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 404, http://dx.doi.org/10.1144/SP404.8. Uenver‐Theile, L., Woodland, A., Downes, H. and Altherr, R., 2014. Oxidation state of the lithospheric mantle below the Massif Central, France. Journal of Petrology. Vermeesch, P. and Tian, Y., 2014. Thermal history modelling: HeFTy vs. QTQt. Earth‐Science Reviews, doi:10.1016/j.earscirev.2014.09.010. Warner, N.H., Gupta, S., Calef, F., Grindrod, P.M., Boll, N. and Goddard, K., 2014. Minimum Effective Area for High Resolution Crater Counting of Martian Terrains: Assessment and Recommendations. Icarus, 245, 198‐240, doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2014.09.024. Young, J.R. and Bown, P.R., 2014. Some Emendments to Calcareous Nannoplankton Taxonomy. Journal of Nannoplankton Research, 33, 39‐46. Institute for Earth and Planetary Sciences 6
IMPACT ACTIVITIES AND MEDIA
IN THE MEDIA
Karen Hudson‐Edwards and Charlie Bristow’s open‐access paper in Chemical Geology entitled 'Solid‐phase phosphorus speciation in Saharan Bodele Depression dusts and source sediments' have been discussed on the BBC web site (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science‐environment‐29361002) and Down to Earth (http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/fossilised‐fish‐bones‐africa‐are‐fertilising‐amazon‐forest). Dario Alfè was interviewed by Tim Folger on our research on the transport properties of the Earth's core, and the resulting article “Journeys to the Centre of the Earth” featured in the July/August 2014 issue of the Discover magazine.
THE NERC LONDON DTP
The DTP is now open to applications for 35 studentships. Deadline is 11th February, 2015. The interview dates are set for Monday 9th and Tuesday 10th February. Staff may submit exemplar projects to be advertised on the DTP website at any time using the online template, http://london‐nerc‐dtp.org/submit‐a‐project/ The London DTP will be holding an innovation week (introducing environmental scientists to business, science policy and key stakeholders) on the 16th ‐ 20th February 2015. It will be held at The Crystal, Royal Victoria Docks, East London (http://www.thecrystal.org/visit‐us.html). If you have a first year NERC CASE student and would like them to attend please contact Marianne Knight (marianne.knight@ucl.ac.uk) asap. PHD COMPLETIONS
Louise Alexander (Bbk) successfully passed her PhD viva. Louise's thesis was on “The petrology and geochemistry of basaltic fines collected at the Apollo 12 landing site”, and formed part of a larger study of basaltic diversity in Oceanus Procellarum. Louise was supervised by Professors Ian Crawford and Hilary Downes (Birkbeck) and Dr Katherine Joy (Manchester), and was examined by Dr Adrian Jones (UCL) and Professor Sara Russell (NHM). Blanca Cantalejo‐Lopez (UCL) successfully defended her thesis on “Impact of basin tectonics and climate change on the timing of sediment flux to the Ainsa Basin, Middle Eocene, Spanish Pyrenees”, supervised by Kevin Pickering. Blanca has a full‐time job as a sedimentologist with Nexen Petroleum based at their London offices. Melanie Duncan (UCL) successfully defended her interdisciplinary thesis, "Multi‐Hazard Assessments for Disaster Risk Reduction: Lessons from the Philippines and Applications for Non‐Governmental Organisations", and will be recommended for the award of EngD. Melanie was supervised by Stephen Edwards, Christopher Kilburn and John Twigg from UCL, and by Kate Crowley from the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development. She was examined by Carmen Solana from Portsmouth and Max Hope from Ulster. John Facer (Bbk) passed his PhD for his thesis: “A study of metasomatism and microstructure in mantle xenoliths from the Bearpaw Mountains, Montana, USA”. Hilary Downes was principal supervisor and his external examiners were Prof Martin Menzies (RHUL) and Dr Andrea Tommasi (University of Montpellier). Emma‐Louise Nicholls (Bbk), supervised by Charlie Underwood, successfully defended her interdisciplinary thesis, “Patterns in the Palaeoecology of Cretaceous Chondrichthyan faunas”. Examiners were Paul Bown (UCL) and Dave Martill (University of Portsmouth). Institute for Earth and Planetary Sciences 7
Lucy Norman, who was jointly supervised between UCL (Dominic Fortes) and BBK (by Prof. Ian Crawford) on an Institute of Origins studentship, successfully defended her PhD thesis in front of Professor Steve Perkins (UCL Biology) and Dr Terry Kee (Leeds School of Chemistry). Lucy’s work was on the formation of reverse vesicular structures in liquid hydrocarbons (with relevance to possible life on Titan), and was a project she developed entirely on her own initiative. Alexandra Seymour‐Pierce (UCL), supervised by Peter Sammonds, successfully defend her thesis on "High speed ice friction and its application to the winter sport of skeleton”, in October 2014. This research was carried out in support of the UK Skeleton Team, funded by UK Sport. FORTHCOMING MEETINGS AND SEMINARS
Details on the Palaeoclimate seminars, held most Wednesdays between 1 and 2pm, can be found at; http://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/about‐the‐department/events‐seminars/palaeoclimate‐seminars Institute for Earth and Planetary Sciences 8