The EUROCORES Programme EuroMinScI Inititiative holds its 2nd Conference
What’s going on in the Earth’s core, why are there magnetic anomalies in
rocks, how is water incorporated in minerals, and how do pearls grow?
These and many other important questions the mineral sciences engage in,
were the topics of the 2nd EuroMinScI (European Mineral Sciences
Initiative) Conference held in Giens, France, last April. The conference
is a major annual event of the EuroMinScI Community, providing a venue
for the participants to present their latest findings and key
achievements within the programme and seeing what is cutting edge in the
field.
The European Science Foundation (ESF)’s EUROCORES (European
Collaborative Research) programme EuroMinScI draws together different
experimental techniques and computational activities into
interdisciplinary integrated research projects addressing various
aspects of mineralogy. Advanced atomistic computer simulations make it
possible to predict mineral properties and behaviour. At the same time,
these predictions are tested by in situ measurements of many mineral
properties at extreme temperatures and pressures corresponding to those
existing in Earth’s deep interior.
Hence, one aim of the EuroMinScI programme is to provide young
researchers with an academic background in earth sciences with training
in the physics-based simulation techniques, where the methods differ
considerably from traditional earth sciences. Therefore, the
“Outstanding Young Scientists Awards” marked a highlight at the 2nd
EuroMinScI conference, acknowledging and rewarding the efforts of the
young scientists involved in the programme.
All of the work presented by the young scientists attending the
conference was of immensely high quality, and the committee comprising
of Professor Björn Winkler (University of Frankfurt), Professor Ulf
Hålenius (Stockholm University), Dr. Kai Rankenburg and Dr. Michiko Hama
(both ESF), was impressed by the intriguing findings of both the
experimentalists and the theoretical modeling researchers.
The award winners of the conference were two experimentalists: Olga
Narygina for the best oral presentation and Verity Borthwick for the
best poster presentation. “These experiments are outstanding in a sense
that they really allow us to understand observations which were hitherto
not easily accessible” said Björn Winkler, chair of the scientific
committee of the EuroMinScI Programme. Both of the award winners
received a generous travel grant, which they can use for attending a
meeting, or visiting another project team involved in the EuroMinScI
Programme.
24-year old Olga Narygina is a member of EuroMinScI’s MCEC (Mineralogy
and Chemistry of Earth’s Core) project and works with iron-nickel alloy,
the supposed main component of the Earth’s core. She investigates its
properties in a diamond anvil apparatus under high pressure and
temperature in order to constrain the influence of carbon on the phase
relations in the iron-nickel system. Olga Narygina is currently a PhD
student at the University of Bayreuth, having received her M.Sc. in
Physics at Ural State University, Ekaterinburg, Russia, in 2006. She was
astonished to have won the prize and is still debating on what to do
with her travel grant. “I might use it to attend the AGU Fall Meeting in
San Francisco” said Narygina.
Verity Borthwick is a 25-year old PhD student from Stockholm University
and a graduate of the University of Sydney. She was delighted to have
been selected as an awardee, and will use the grant to participate in
the Gordon Research Conference on ‘rock deformation – real-time
rheology’ in New Hamsphire, USA, this August. “This is a really relevant
conference for my project and it will also be a great chance to convey
what we have learnt to people outside the European mineral sciences
community” said Borthwick. Working in the MINSUBSTRDYN (Subgrain
Structure Development in Rocks and Metals) group, she is looking at
substructural dynamics, the understanding of which being a prerequisite
to comprehend what’s happening on a larger scale like mountain building;
her analogue study with /in situ/ experiments in the scanning electron
microscope on the annealing of deformed rocksalt led to winning the award.
A concentrated meeting like the 2nd EuroMinScI conference is especially
important for the networking of young and also more senior scientists,
opening up opportunities for their future careers and collaborations. 11
internationally recognized external experts were attending the
conference as invited speakers. Professor Ross Angel from Virginia
Tech, who gave one of the keynote lectures, noted the breadth of the
research groups reaching from atomic modelers to structural geologists
and stated: “I think EuroMinScI is a unique picture of this kind of
collaboration between these traditionally very different fields of
expertise”. Dr. David Stonner, Head of the Europe Office of the
National Science Foundation (NSF), took part in the conference as an
observer and enjoyed the multidisciplinarity of the participants. “I was
impressed by the quality of the presentations and the quality of the
interaction between the participants” commented Stonner. He sees
multiple potential linkages between American groups in the mineral
sciences and EuroMinScI.
The European added value of the EUROCORES programme could be clearly
felt at the conference and the benefits are multi-facetted. The European
mineral physics community has through EuroMinScI for the first time a
common venue. “We have found a common marketplace to exchange ideas and
EuroMinScI is a highly successful enterprise” said Winkler and hopes to
continue the collaborative work in a similar manner in the future.
David Stonner concludes: “My understanding of the Scheme and the
changing research landscape in Europe is that EUROCORES will play an
increasingly large role in collaborative activities in Europe, and I
think quite possibly throughout the world, as scientists look for
opportunities to cross geographical boundaries and work together”.
The aim of the European Collaborative Research (EUROCORES) Scheme is to
enable researchers in different European countries to develop
collaboration and scientific synergy in areas where European scale and
scope are required to reach the critical mass necessary for top class
science in a global context. The scheme provides a flexible framework
which allows national basic research funding and performing
organisations to join forces to support excellent European research in
and across all scientific areas. The European Science Foundation (ESF)
provides scientific coordination and support for networking activities
of funded scientists currently through the EC FP6 Programme, under
contract no. ERAS-CT-2003-980409. Research funding is provided by
participating national organisations.
The European Science Foundation (ESF) provides a platform for its Member
Organisations to advance European research and explore new directions
for research at the European level. Established in 1974 as an
independent non-governmental organisation, the ESF currently serves 77
Member Organisations across 30 countries.
For further information on EuroMinScI, please go to
www.esf.org/eurominsci
For further information on the EUROCORES Scheme, please go to
www.esf.org/eurocores
