Hi all,
I am advertising two DPhil (PhD) projects for 2020 entry funded by the Natural Environment Research Council Doctoral Training Program (DTP). Note that while DTP studentships are only open to UK citizens or EU applicants who have lived in the UK for three years or longer, exceptional students should still contact me and may be eligible for other opportunities, such as the Clarendon fund.
- Project EARTH-20-RP1: Geodynamic mechanisms for building Earth’s first continents
This project will constrain the geodynamics of continental crust formation on the early Earth, and will involve field investigation and mapping in the Archean Lewisian Complex, northwest Scotland, alongside integrated laboratory analysis (e.g. EPMA, LA-ICP-MS) and petrological modeling. Identification of the geodynamic processes that shaped the early Earth will be used to answer long-standing questions about secular changes in metamorphism and tectonics, and have wide-ranging implications for the geological evolution of other rocky bodies in our solar system (e.g. Venus, Mars, the Moon) and for the potential habitability of exoplanets.
- Project EARTH-20-RP2: A hidden water reservoir in the continental lithosphere
This project will constrain the water-carrying capacity of nominally anhydrous minerals in continental lithosphere, with a focus on SCLM. The fluid content of key minerals such as garnet, olivine, orthopyroxene, and clinopyroxene, controls their host rocks' petrophysical properties, such as melting temperature, electrical conductivity, and rheology. This work will involve detailed analysis of pristine and metasomatized mantle xenoliths from the east-central USA and will also involve aspects of thermobarometry and petrological modeling. The results of this work will provide new insight into volatile cycling between the Earth's surface and interior, and the physico-chemical properties of poorly-understood, inaccessible parts of the Earth.
All details can be found at the link below and the attachments to this message:
Please send this on to anyone who may be interested in these positions, or contact me at
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Thanks!
Richard Palin
Assistant Professor of Metamorphic Geology,
Department of Geology and Geological Engineering,
Colorado School of Mines,
Golden, CO 80401, USA
Tel: +1 (303) 273-3819
“Rocks are records of events that took place at the time they formed. They are books. They have a different vocabulary, a different alphabet, but you learn how to read them.” – John McPhee