Meetings

Section Activities at the 2019 Fall AGU Meeting
(San Francisco)

Award ceremony and MRP/SEDI Joint Reception

The reception was hosted on Tue 12/10/19, 6:30pm–8:00pm in the Marriott Marquis, Salons 5-6, Lower B2. Congratulations to all the MRP and DI awardees!

MRP Jamieson award

Francesca Miozzi, Sorbonne Université, France
Miozzi’s paper describes the evolution of the phase diagram in the Si-C binary, which is the relevant mineralogy for terrestrial exoplanets around C-rich stars. The thorough examination involves a combination of in situ synchrotron x-ray studies on the B3-B1 transition, the PVT thermal equations of state of both phases, and the implication for mass-radius relationship in such planetary systems.
Miozzi, F., Morard, G., Antonangeli, D., Clark, A. N., Mezouar, M., Dorn, C., et al. (2018). Equation of state of SiC at extreme conditions: New insight into the interior of carbon-rich exoplanets. Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, 123, 2295–2309. https://doi.org/ 10.1029/2018JE005582


Suyu Fu, University of Texas Austin, USA
Fu’s paper describes the effect of the spin transition in ferric iron located in the octahedral B-site of bridgmanite, the lower mantle’s most abundant mineral. Specifically, the P-wave seismic velocity is inferred from impulse-stimulated light scattering measurements of longitudinal acoustic phonon frequencies.
Fu, S., Yang, J., Zhang, Y., Okuchi, T., McCammon, C., Kim, H.-I., et al. (2018). Abnormal elasticity of Fe-bearing bridgmanite in the Earth’s lower mantle. Geophysical Research Letters, 45. https:// doi.org/10.1029/2018GL077764


MRP graduate research award

Kathryn Kumamoto, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
Kumamoto’s work comports important observation of crystal size effects in low-temperature deformation of olivine, as well as pyroxene standards for SIMS analysis of concentration of water in silicate minerals, the influence of kinematics of deformation on lattice-preferred orientation development in olivine, and role of melt and water in upper-mantle dynamics. The natural outcome is scaling laws for olivine flows in low-temperature environments, which is seconded by field work that gives her package a very large scope.


Christopher Thom, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Thom’s work revolves around the nanoscale roughness of natural fault surfaces controlled by scale-dependent yield strength, the physical mechanisms of frictional aging, and diffusional creep in ice. He has a great publication record for someone who has just finished his PhD. Thom’s letter writers are emphatic about his exceptional creativity, his mastery of fundamentals of contact mechanics, and his broad knowledge base. Such a combination has allowed him to make progress on a variety of minerals and different research directions.


MRP early career award

Sergey Lobanov, Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum GFZ, Germany
Lobanov is a prolific independent scientist: strongly motivated, critically thinking, full of ideas, armed with deep knowledge in geosciences. He is a truly exceptional and innovative scientist with a proven track record of high impact research and outstanding contributions in Mineral Physics. He is an outstanding candidate for the early career award. His contributions impact our views of planetary interiors, and cover important topics such as spin-crossover transitions, and the carbonates under high pressures and temperatures, and last but not least the daunting measurement of thermal transport properties (thermal diffusivity and conductivity) in the mantle. Noteworthy are his highly original contributions to transport properties and optical spectroscopy as a tool to understand valence/spin states. He is now building his own laboratory in Potsdam, Germany, and has received a Helmholtz Foundation grant.