GS and EAG Announce Inaugural Outreach Program Lectures

May 16, 2013

Bernhard Wehrli of ETH Zürich is the first lecturer in the GS-EAG Outreach Program. Pr. Wehrli will deliver lectures in Ethiopia and Madagascar in June and Cameroon, Ghana, and Kenya in September. The lectures span a range of topics of local and regional importance including water availability and quality for both drinking and agriculture and one entitled "In search of rare elements: mining for cell phones". The Societies wish Pr. Wehrli every success in his lecture tour.

20% off GCC packages through June 28

May 10, 2013

From now through June 28, all Geochemical Career Center packages are 20% off when using promotion code: 4GCC20. Packages must be used within one year of purchase. All postings to the Career Center are promoted through our Facebook page with over 1,900 likes, and here in Geochemical News with over 5,100 subscribers every week the posting is active. Those seeking employment may post their résumé on the Career Center for free. READ MORE

Three GS Members Elected to U.S. National Academy

May 03, 2013

Kenneth A. Farley, W.M. Keck Foundation Professor of Geochemistry and Chair, Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology. Farley pursues a wide range of studies utilizing the noble gases to examine subjects ranging from deep mantle structure, to the influx rate of extraterrestrial material to Earth, and particularly the development and application of a number of low-temperature thermochronologic methods. His GS recognitions include 2009 Gast Lecturer and 2013 Geochemical Fellow.

Katherine H. Freeman, Professor in the Department of Geosciences at Pennsylvania State University. Freeman, incoming President of the Organic Geochemistry Division of the Geochemical Society, studies fossil molecules and their stable isotopic compositions with applications to ancient climate, microbial biogeochemistry and the signatures of life on Earth and beyond. Her GS recognitions include 2007 Gast Lecturer and 2011 Geochemical Fellow.

Terry A. Plank, Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Plank studies volcanism at subduction zones including the processes of magma generation, the role of crustal recycling and sediment subduction, and the water content of magmas for its effect on magma evolution and eruption. Her GS recognitions include 2007 Ingerson Lecturer and 2011 Geochemical Fellow.

Marilyn Fogel named 2013 Treibs Medalist

April 29, 2013

Marilyn Fogel, Professor in the School of Natural Sciences at the University of California – Merced, has been selected as the recipient of the 2013 Alfred Treibs Award. Fogel was nominated for her numerous seminal contributions to the fields of organic geochemistry, biogeochemistry, ecological processes, meteoritics and the archaeological sciences. The Treibs Award recognizes major achievements, over a period of years, in organic geochemistry. The award is expected to be presented at the IMOG2013 in Tenerife, Canary Islands (Spain) this September.

ISM Program reaches 52 students from 13 countries

April 29, 2013

Since starting the Introductory Student Membership Program two months ago, the program has provided free 2-year student memberships to 52 new GS student members from Argentina, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, India, Iran, Kenya, Morocco, Pakistan, Moldova, Sri Lanka and Venezuela. The program is supported by generous donations from members along with a contribution from the GS. If you would like to donate to the program please login to your member account and click 'donate'. There are still funds remaining for additional memberships -- please encourage qualified students to apply.

Goldschmidt2013 attracts over 4,000 abstracts

April 22, 2013

More than 4000 abstracts have been received, making Goldschmidt2013 the biggest geochemical conference ever! Please make sure you register before the 25 June 2013 early registration deadline, as well as book accommodations, and make plans for interesting workshops, social events and tours. A Letter of Invitation is also available to assist with funding or visa applications. Early registration for members is 490 Euro for delegates and 295 Euro for students. Please encourage your colleagues and students attending Goldschmidt2013 and are not members of one of the sponsoring societies (GS, EAG, GSJ) to join first, so that they may qualify for the member rate.

GS at 2013 GSA Annual Meeting

April 22, 2013

Thanks to strong volunteer support, the Geochemical Society is sponsoring or co-sponsoring 33 topical sessions at this year’s GSA Annual Meeting in Denver (27-30 October). Abstract submission is now open and the deadline to submit your abstract is Tuesday, 6 August 2013.

ELEMENTS: Serpentinites

April 12, 2013

The April issue of Elements magazine (volume 9, issue 2) is in press and mailing is planned for April 24. As so ably outlined by Guest Editors Stéphane Guillot and Keiko Hattori and the authors of this issue, the study of serpentinites—rocks consisting mostly of the serpentine-group minerals chrysotile, lizardite, and antigorite—leads to just about every area of the Earth sciences. From being a lubricant along plate boundaries during aseismic creep, to serving as a reservoir of water and fluid-mobile elements in the mantle, to sequestering CO₂, serpentinites play essential roles in numerous geological settings.

Current Geochemical Society members can access this issue now via the Elements online archive using your email address (UserID) and member number (Password).

ELEMENTS: Call for Thematic Topic Proposals

April 12, 2013

Every year, Elements chooses six topics for its thematic content and each topic is covered in five to seven articles. Elements is now taking proposals for its 2015 issues. Is your exciting and pertinent field of research not being covered by Elements? If so, consider submitting a proposal. For more information, also visit guidelines for guest editors and instructions to authors. For questions, please contact the Managing Editor Pierrette Tremblay or one of the Principal Editors: George Calas, John Valley, or Patricia Dove. Proposals will be reviewed and the 2015 lineup determined this October.

GS Membership Surpasses Milestone

April 08, 2013

This week, thanks to over 3,800 new and returning members, the Society’s 2013 membership has surpassed the previous membership record of 3,793 reached last year. As an international scientific association it is wonderful to see membership in more than 60 countries and as well as a large percentage of students. Thank you for your support in the Society and our programs. The figures show the composition of the current membership. The left graphic is membership by type (75.4% Professional, 20.4% Student, and 4.2% Senior) and right graphic is membership by continent (1% Africa, 11% Asia, 27% Europe, 53% North America, 7% Oceania, and 2% South America)

Goldschmidt13 Deadlines this Friday

April 08, 2013

This is a final reminder that the deadlines for abstract submissions, field trip bookings, and travel grants are this Friday (April 12). Be sure to book accommodations early, as well as make plans for interesting workshops, social events, and tours. A Letter of Invitation is also available to assist with funding or visa applications. Early registration for members is 490 Euro for delegates and 295 Euro for students. Please encourage your colleagues and students who plan to attend Goldschmidt2013 and are not members of one of the sponsoring societies (GS, EAG, GSJ) to join first, so that they may qualify for the member rate.

Karl K. Turekian 1927-2013

March 18, 2013

Karl Turekian, who was the Sterling Professor of Geology and Geophysics at Yale University, passed away March 15. Turekian was a world-renowned geochemist, past President of the Geochemical Society, editor or associate editor for eight geochemistry journals, and author of numerous books and hundreds of papers. He received his A.B. from Wheaton College in 1949 and his Ph.D. from Columbia in 1955 then started what turned out to be a 50 year career as Professor at Yale. Turekian was a larger-than-life personality whose infectious enthusiasm for geochemistry contributed hugely to the development of the field. His personality shines through in his autobiography which chronicles his path through the wide range of geochemical topics to which he contributed over his remarkable career, and well displays his ability to tell a good story.

RIMG #75: Carbon in Earth released as an open access publication

March 11, 2013

Carbon in Earth is a product of the Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO), a 10-year international research effort dedicated to achieving transformational understanding of the chemical and biological roles of carbon in Earth. The book integrates a vast body of knowledge and research in physics, chemistry, biology and Earth and space sciences about carbon. A small fraction of Earth's carbon is in its atmosphere, seawater and top crusts. An estimated 90% or more is locked away or in motion deep underground - a hidden dimension of the planet as poorly understood as it is profoundly important to life on the surface. Each chapter synthesizes what we know about this deep carbon, and also outlines unanswered questions that will guide the DCO's research for the remainder of the decade and beyond. A hallmark of the DCO is the desire to implement advanced strategies in communications, data management, engagement, and visualization. Accordingly, this volume incorporates some novel aspects of animations and videos. Thanks to sponsorship by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which provides significant support for the DCO, this is the first of the RIMG series to be published as an Open Access volume. Print copies are also available for purchase for US$ 40.00. Geochemical Society members receive a 25% discount on RIMG orders.

ELEMENTS: One Hundred Years of Isotope Geochronology

March 04, 2013

The February issue (volume 9, issue 1) was taken to press on Feb. 20. It is also available online either through GeoScienceWorld or on the Elements Archive.

This latest issue of Elements takes us on a voyage in time, starting with the discovery of radioactivity and carrying us forward to today. We meet the giants the field of geochronology is indebted to. We see the challenges that have been met and those that lie ahead. We are reminded that for a mineral date to have meaning, the context of the mineral analyzed and the rock of which it is a constituent must be thoroughly documented. And this is an overarching theme of all papers in this issue.

Getting absolute ages on geological materials has become key in just every field of the Earth sciences. Authors in the seven papers of this issue, under the guest editorship of Dan Condon and Mark Schmitz, explore the state-of-the-art technological advances that have made geochronology a high-precision and high-accuracy science. This issue should follow in the footsteps of the Zircon issue (Feb. 2007; volume 3, issue 1), which is the most highly cited Elements issue.

Goldschmidt2013 Registration Opens

February 21, 2013

Online registration for Goldschmidt2013 in Florence, Italy is now open. Early registration is 540 € for delegates and 345 € for students. Geochemical Society members receive an additional 50 € discount (490 € / 295 € respectively). To receive the discount you must submit your member number with your registration. Current members were sent an email yesterday (Feb. 25) with their membership number. If you did not receive it, please visit our member login to locate your member number or check your member status.. The Abstract deadline is 12 April 2013 (23:59 UTC), and the Early Registration deadline is 25 June 2013.

Have I renewed my GS membership?

February 14, 2013

Anyone may subscribe to GNews for free, so if you are wondering if your membership is up to date, we now have an easy and secure way to check online. Our member login will let you view your member status and account information. The sidebar also gives options to add another year of membership, purchase publications/subscriptions, make donations or submit a change of address. If you have forgotten your member number there is also a link to recover it using your email address. Registration for Goldschmidt2013 is right around the corner, so be sure to keep current!

The International Participation Program - Introductory Student GS Membership

February 14, 2013

Members of the Geochemical Society come from 63 countries, but 95% of the membership resides in just 8 regions. To encourage broader international participation, the Geochemical Society is pleased to announce the launch of the first phase of its International Participation Program (IPP) - Introductory Student Memberships. The Introductory Student Membership Program provides a limited number of two-year student memberships in the GS free of charge to students who have not previously been members of the GS and are currently enrolled in a geochemistry related Masters or Doctorate program in countries outside those that currently dominate the GS membership. The introductory student memberships come with all the member benefits of a regular student membership. Please look to the IPP web page to see if you or one of your students qualify for the introductory memberships and complete an application form.

Support for the IPP comes from generous member donations matched by contributions from the Society. To make a donation, login to your member account and click the donate button on the sidebar. 100% of your IPP donation goes into the program and will help the GS communicate the importance of geochemistry to the international community.

Joel Blum named 2013 Patterson Medalist

February 08, 2013

Joel D. Blum, the John D. MacArthur and Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Michigan has been selected as the recipient of the 2013 Clair C. Patterson Award. The Patterson award is given annually for a recent breakthrough in environmental geochemistry of fundamental significance, published in a peer-reviewed journal. Blum is recognized for his contributions to addressing the problem of Hg in the environment through the development of novel isotopic measurements that in some ways parallel Patterson's seminal work tracing Pb contamination in the environment. [Photo courtesy: Lawrence Berkeley National Lab]

Blair Schoene named 2013 Clarke Medalist

February 08, 2013

Dr. Blair Schoene, Assistant Professor in the Department of Geosciences of Princeton University will receive the 2013 F.W. Clarke Award. Dr. Schoene was nominated for his multi-faceted body of work that assisted in the development of improved accuracy and precision in U-Pb geochronology which he then used to define the detailed assembly and deformational history of the ancient crust of South Africa. The Clarke Award recognizes an early-career scientist for a single outstanding contribution to geochemistry or cosmochemistry published either as a single paper or a series of papers on a single topic. [Photo courtesy: Princeton University]

Goldschmidt 2014 launches website

February 08, 2013

The Californian Goldschmidt will take place in Sacramento between June 8 and June 13, 2014. Goldschmidt2014 will follow the pattern established for the recent Goldschmidt conferences, and will be the prime forum for all recent developments in Geochemistry and related fields. Sacramento is the state capitol of California, famous as the heart of gold country and one of the most important agricultural regions in the world. The venue is conveniently close to many of California's renowned geologic features including Yosemite Valley and the Sierra Nevada batholith, several ophiolite complexes, and the fossil subduction zone of the Franciscan Complex. Sacramento is also well paced for excursions to the main Californian wine producing areas and other tourist areas in the state. Field trips linked to symposia will be a hallmark of the conference. Please put the dates in your calendar, and plan to join us in California in June 2014!

Be part of GCA

November 13, 2012

GCA Journal Cover

Michael J. Drake (1946 - 2011)

October 01, 2011

Dr. Michael J. Drake (1946-2011)

The Geochemical Society lost a great scientist and leader in Michael J. Drake, who passed away in Tucson on September 21, 2011. He engaged in research of great breadth, extending across disciplines that included meteoritics, geochemistry and planetary sciences, and reaching across the inner solar system (Earth, Moon, Mars, Venus, asteroid 4 Vesta, and other asteroid parent bodies). He considered himself first and foremost a geochemist. He was simultaneously president of the Geochemical Society (1998-1999) and the Meteoritical Society (1999-2000), and his service to the societies and greater geochemical community was enormous, as exemplified below.

Michael Julian Drake was born July 8, 1946 in Bristol, England. He grew up in England and attended college at Victoria University of Manchester, where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology with honors in 1967. Mike earned his Ph.D. in Geology working with Dan Weill at the University of Oregon in 1972. At Oregon, he took full advantage of the great opportunities to study returned samples from all of the Apollo missions to the Moon. The Oregon geochemistry group of the 1970's, (led by Weill, Gordon Goles, and Alexander McBirney) produced many prominent geochemists and petrologists, including Mike Drake, Jan Bottinga, Bill Leeman, David and Marilyn Lindstrom, Stewart McCallum, T. Murase, H.R. Naslund, R.A.F. Grieve, and Gordon McKay. One of the fundamental discoveries of the Apollo mission was the presence of Eu anomalies in lunar igneous rocks, caused by plagioclase fractionation. Mike's doctoral work on the partitioning of Eu and the variation of Eu²⁺/Eu³⁺ with oxygen fugacity was one of the first true experimental studies of trace element partitioning, and led to basic insights into the differentiation history of the Moon. Mike then spent a year as a postdoctoral research associate with John Wood at the Harvard Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (1972-1973), which enhanced our understanding of lunar anorthosite and crustal formation (Wood's group had been instrumental in developing the idea of flotation of plagioclase on an early lunar magma ocean, to form an ancient anorthositic crust).

Mike moved to a faculty position with the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona in 1973, where he remained until his death. The LPL was a unique and exceptionally fruitful environment, which brought geochemists, geophysicists, space physicists, meteoriticists, planetary scientists, and astronomers together in the same institute. In this setting, Mike's research thrived and expanded. He continued working on the concept of a lunar magma ocean, and collegial interactions at the LPL allowed him to combine geochemical and geophysical constraints. He established an electron microprobe lab of world-class caliber, overseen first by Tom Teska and later Ken Domanik; the microprobe formed the heart of the Drake group analytical capability.

The discovery of spectral similarities between eucrite (basaltic) meteorites and asteroid 4 Vesta by some of the LPL scientists compelled Mike to pursue this link. His initial work on rare earth element (REE) modeling led to studies over several decades that addressed magmatism, core formation, differentiation, and ultimately the application of a magma ocean model to 4 Vesta. His influence on understanding the origin, differentiation and geologic history of 4 Vesta has been fundamental and unwavering.

Mike's studies of differentiation and core formation in small bodies continued, and his emphasis focused on the siderophile elements such as Ni, Co, W, Ga, Ge, P, Ir, and Au. Work in his lab over several decades focused on the partitioning of these elements between solid and liquid metal, simulating the crystallization of molten metallic cores from which we have remnants represented by the various iron meteorite groups. Although many students and post-docs participated in these studies, one of the first indications that this was fertile field of study came from the experiments of an undergraduate researcher. These efforts led to a detailed understanding of the chemical and physical evolution of metal cores. His group also started studying the partitioning of siderophile elements between metal and silicate melt, to simulate the conditions of core formation, and to test whether metallic cores equilibrated with silicate mantles of differentiated bodies. These studies were applied to the Moon and asteroid 4 Vesta, and demonstrated the physical and chemical conditions under which their cores may have equilibrated with their mantles. Applications were made to the Earth and Mars, but later it was realized that applications to these larger bodies required additional lab capabilities.

As models for these small bodies matured, emphasis turned to the Earth, and its differentiation history, where conditions of high pressure and temperature are so important. Mike's dedication and interest in this problem led him to pursue new experimental techniques at high pressures with the help of several of his colleagues - John Holloway, Dave Rubie, Tibor Gasparik, and Dave Walker. Under their tutelage, Mike learned piston cylinder and multi-anvil techniques, established his own high-pressure experimental petrology lab, and began to make fundamental contributions to this field as well. His group took on the problem of explaining the excess of siderophile elements in the Earth's primitive upper mantle that had been traditionally explained by late accretion of chondritic materials (heterogeneous accretion). He also addressed the question of how Earth's major, minor and trace elements were fractionated during its early stages by deep mantle phases such as majorite garnet, magnesiowüstite, and Mg-perovskite. These studies, with parallel studies by several other groups, have shown that the Earth likely had an early deep magma ocean, and that the mantle could not have fractionated much of these deep mantle minerals, or it would have attained non-chondritic values of key elemental ratios. The detailed knowledge of Earth led Mike and his group to consider general models for planetary building blocks.

Although the origin of Earth's water became a special interest in his later years, his group had worked consistently on planetary volatiles. Early work in the 1980's examined the evolution of Ar and N in Earth, Mars and Venus - again this work was enhanced by the unique environment at the LPL where planetary atmospheric scientists worked just down the hallway. Solubilities of noble gases (Xe, Kr, Ar, and Ne) in silicate phases their partitioning among them was the next emphasis, which logically evolved into study of the I-Xe chronometer system during planetary differentiation. The differences between water-bearing and water-free systems led to an explanation for the fundamental difference in Xe isotopes between the Earth and Mars. With deep magma ocean models proposed by his group in the 1990s, came the realization that water could easily be dissolved into such deep melts, and these could be significant reservoirs of primordial water. Because the difference in D/H ratios measured in comets from those in Earth's oceans began to erode the traditional hypothesis that Earth's water came from comets, Mike began to consider the origin of Earth's water by looking at the entire accretion process from adsorption onto early dust grains, to delivery during accretion, to possible later sources delivered by various dynamic mechanisms.

Mike left his mark on a number of influential meetings. Mike and John Holloway co-chaired the notorious 1977 Sedona (AZ) conference on trace element partitioning between magmatic phases and silicate melt. This landmark meeting, and its published proceedings, influenced a generation of geochemists and set the stage for decades of research. The 1984 conference on the Origin of the Moon, in Kona (HI) saw the emergence of the Giant impact hypothesis of the Moon's origin. Mike was there and was a key contributor to the discussions. Implications of this hypothesis for the Earth were still debated at the 1988 Origin of the Earth conference in Berkeley (CA); the proceedings volume of that conference was edited by two members of Mike's group, H. Newsom and J. Jones. In 1997, Mike and Joaquin Ruiz organized the Goldschmidt meeting of the Geochemical Society in Tucson, a large and scientifically stimulating meeting enjoyed by many. Finally, Mike and Alex Halliday organized the 1998 meeting on the Origin of the Earth and Moon in Monterey (CA). Partly due to this meeting, this field has been stirred several times since, and continues to be a topic of great progress and change, strengthening our understanding of the origin of terrestrial planets and the Earth-Moon system.

Working with Mike was a pleasure and a privilege, sometimes not realized until after the fact. He was articulate and pointed in his engagements and debates at meetings, and helped the members of his research group achieve a comparable level of clarity and direction. Group practice talks before meetings were the norm, and commonly led to a new set of slides being produced hours before departing for a meeting! Mike was easy and fun to tease - stories from his graduate school days indicate that his immaculately clean and organized desk was frequently 'disorganized' by his fellow students, much to his displeasure. In his experimental lab at LPL, his students and postdocs created an empty drawer labeled 'successful Drake experiments'. Graduate students at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory annually pranked Mike on April Fools Day - some eggs hidden in his office about 15 years ago have, for example, never been found. Once on a day trip at a conference in France his group accused him of being 'high maintenance' and he was shocked to hear this...but was a good sport about it. Mike took all of the teasing in great stride and dished it back when opportunity arose. His sense of humor and good will were an important part of his success.

Mike was appointed Head of the Department of Planetary Sciences and Director of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in 1994, a position he held until 2011. Under his leadership, LPL successfully built and flew a variety of spacecraft instruments including the Imager for Mars Pathfinder, the Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer (DISR) on Cassini/Huygens, the IMAGE Extreme Ultraviolet Imager, and the Gamma-ray Spectrometer Suite (GRS) on Mars Odyssey. Under his watch, LPL built the Surface Stereo Imager and Robotic Arm cameras and the TEGA instrument on Phoenix, and successfully operated Phoenix on the Martian surface from the University of Arizona campus. In addition, under Mike's leadership, LPL scientists were selected as Team Leaders on the Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) on the Cassini mission and the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

His personal dedication to space exploration through missions involved both Mars Sample Return and later OSIRIS-Rex. In 1987 Mike and Gordon McKay organized the first Mars Sample Return Workshop. The OSIRIS-Rex mission was selected for funding by the New Frontiers Program in 2011, with Mike as Principal Investigator (PI) for the mission. OSIRIS-Rex will launch in 2016 to asteroid 1999 RQ36, a small B class (carbonaceous) near Earth asteroid, map and characterize the surface, collect a sample and return that sample safely to Earth in 2023. The dedication of Mike and his Deputy PI Dante Lauretta to this mission ensure Mike's legacy: inspiring new young scientists in the stages of this mission, and providing the science community with samples from an asteroid that can be studied long after the mission is completed.

Mike received many accolades for his research accomplishments. He was named a fellow of the Meteoritical Society in 1980, the American Geophysical Union and the Geochemical Society in 2002. He was a founding fellow of the Arizona Arts, Sciences and Technology Academy. He was awarded the Leonard Medal of the Meteoritical Society in 2004. Asteroid 1988 PC1 was named 9022 Drake in his honor by Carolyn Shoemaker. Mike also played key roles in defining the planetary science research priorities of the United States, serving on the NASA Space Science Advisory Committee, the Lunar Exploration Science Working Group and as Chair of the NASA Solar System Exploration Subcommittee, among many other service commitments.

Mike's dedication to education and training the next generation is evident in many of his activities and awards. He received the UA College of Science Career Distinguished Teaching Award in 1999 and the University of Arizona Senior Honorary BobCats Outstanding Faculty Member Award in 2006. He inspired many young scientists as the Director of State of Arizona Space Grant Consortium from 2000 to 2011. He served as the University of Arizona representative to the Universities Space Research Association from 2000 to 2011 and served on the Board of Trustees for the Universities Space Research Association from 2007 to 2011.

It is hard to believe he had any spare time after reading this, but Mike was an avid four wheeler, frequently going on adventures in various parts of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. He was also a talented tennis player and many of our colleagues squared off against him at various meetings. Mike is survived by his wife, Gail Georgenson, whom he met and married in Tucson. Together they have two children, Matthew and Melissa, both medical doctors, and a granddaughter, Elsie. His loss will be felt by many and he will be deeply missed.

Kevin Righter, John Jones, David Mittlefehldt (NASA -JSC)
Allan Treiman (LPI)
Nancy Chabot (JHU-APL). September 2011

Students of M.J. Drake
Roger Nielsen, 1978; Charles Hostetler, 1982; Horton Newsom, 1982; Daniel Malvin, 1987; Leigh Broadhurst, 1989; Valerie Hillgren, 1993; Elisabeth McFarlane, 1994; Don Musselwhite, 1995; Nancy Chabot, 1999; Peter H. Smith, 2009; Naydene Hays, 2011.

Postdoctoral scientists of M.J. Drake
Edward Bailey, Jack Berkley, Richard Bild, Christopher Capobianco, Werner Ertel, Cyrena Goodrich, Eddie Hill, Mark Hutchinson, John Jones, David Mittlefehldt, Kevin Righter, Marilena Stimpfl, Allan Treiman.

Ian S. E. Carmichael (1930-2011)

September 01, 2011

The indomitable Ian S. E. Carmichael, who made such a deep and lasting impression on so many of us, with his highly imaginative research career and his legendary mentoring of graduate students, died in Berkeley on August 26th, 2011. Ian applied thermodynamic theory, experiment, and the ground truth of fieldwork to the study of magmatic rocks. Throughout the arc of his career at the University of California at Berkeley, he played a critical role in transforming igneous petrology from a discipline that was largely descriptive to one that is rigorously quantitative, and in the process, he inspired multiple generations of students.

Ian Stuart Edward Carmichael was born on March 29th, 1930 and was raised in Haywards Heath, south of London. He began his education at the age of six when he was packed off to boarding school at Westminster in London. He continued there until his senior year of high school when he made his first trip to the U.S. as an exchange student in Connecticut. Instead of returning home to England for college, he enrolled himself (with the aid of a scholarship) in the Colorado School of Mines, to the surprise and dismay of his parents, and began a lifetime fascination with the rugged terrain of the western United States. After one semester, he returned to England for what was supposed to be a brief Christmas holiday with family, but instead he was promptly drafted into the British army where he saw service in Egypt, Palestine and Sudan. This foray lasted two years, after which he enrolled at Cambridge University, to the delight of his father (E. A. Carmichael, a well-known neurologist at the National Hospital in London). After obtaining his B.A. and M.A. in Geology (specializing in Mineralogy and Petrology) in 1954, Ian went to Canada to prospect for copper in northern Ontario, and then wintered in the Canadian arctic to help survey the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line. Ian returned to England and took his Ph.D. in 1958 at the Imperial College of Science in the University of London under the supervision of George P. L. Walker. Ian's Ph.D. thesis focused on the Tertiary Thingmuli volcano in eastern Iceland, which he used to address one of the most contentious issues in earth science at the time (before the days of isotope geochemistry and plate tectonics), namely the origin of silicic magma, and whether it could form solely by fractional crystallization of basalt, or whether assimilation of older continental crust was required. The problem went to the very heart of crustal evolution, and Iceland offered a superb opportunity to examine how basaltic magma evolves to rhyolite in the absence of continental crust. The papers from Ian's thesis on the Thingmuli volcanic suite are among his most highly cited among an impressive repertoire.

On the completion of his thesis, Ian became a lecturer at Imperial College. Over the next five years, he began to advise several graduate students (Gloria Borley, Wally Johnson, Tony Beswick, Ian Baker, and Ian Ridley), and he developed an expertise on the crystallization path of feldspars in silicic magmas, an interest (along with motor racing) that he shared with Professor William S. MacKenzie ('Mac' to Ian). The two friends wrote the first (funded) proposal to build an experimental petrology laboratory in the U.K. to study feldspar crystallization. In 1963, Ian had the opportunity to take a 6-month leave to visit the University of Chicago, where J.V. Smith was showcasing one of the very first electron microprobes. This instrument had enormous appeal to Ian, who was spending most of his time performing tedious mineral separations for wet chemical analysis. Electron microprobes were not terribly reliable in 1963, and after six months Ian did not have all the data he wanted, and so he submitted a request to Imperial College to extend his leave for a few more months. The request was promptly denied, and he was ordered to return to England forthwith. Ian was so strongly motivated to obtain additional data that he simply quit his faculty job on the spot. So there he was, at age 34, with a wife and three young children, in Chicago, in the dead of winter, without a job (but with a few more analyses!). It was not long before he was invited to UC Berkeley to give a lecture. In February, flying out from Chicago, Berkeley must have looked like Paradise. Given the year, 1964, visions of David Lodge's book, 'Changing Places' cannot help but pop in our heads. Needless to say, this trip to Berkeley eventually translated into a tenured position as an associate professor.

When Ian first arrived on the Berkeley campus in 1964, the study of magmatic rocks was largely descriptive. In contrast, the questions that he was posing, well before their time, were whether the crystals in erupted lavas could be used to reveal the temperature, pressure, dissolved water concentration, and oxidation state of the magmatic liquids from which they crystallized. These questions required a thermodynamic approach, which was a reasonably developed tool in the field of metamorphic petrology, but nearly non-existent for igneous petrologists studying crystal-liquid equilibrium. The problem was the lack of information on the thermodynamic properties of magmatic liquids under in-situ high-temperature conditions. Thus the barrier to the quantitative study of magmatic rocks was immense throughout the 1960's and 70's. Although Ian arrived at Berkeley with little training in thermodynamics, he soon rectified matters by sitting in on some thermodynamics courses in the chemistry department, working on problem sets and exams side by side with his graduate students (Jim Nicholls, Alan Smith, Barbara Nash, and Jay Stormer) and interacting with visitors such as Bernie Wood and Roger Powell. Even more influential for Ian was a course on high-temperature thermodynamics in the materials science department, which introduced him to the Berkeley Thermodynamic Center where there was a high-temperature drop calorimeter. There, Ian and his student Charlie Bacon began some of the first measurements of the enthalpy of various silicate glasses and liquids. It was not long before the 'moth-balled' drop calorimeter was moved into Ian's laboratory, and his student Jonathan Stebbins began to systematically obtain enthalpy and heat capacity data for high-temperature silicate liquids. Soon after, Ian pursued a parallel program (with students Steve Nelson, Mark Rivers, Dan Stein, Quentin Williams, Becky Lange, Victor Kress, and visiting scholar Xuanxue Mo) to measure the volumetric properties of silicate liquids, including their compressibility from sound speed measurements. Later, he worked with his student Don Snyder to measure the thermal conductivity of silicate liquids. Thus began a highly productive period throughout the 1970's and 80's where several papers on the thermodynamics of magmatic reactions and the properties of silicate melts were published.

A unique skill that Ian brought to his experimental work on the thermodynamic properties of liquids, as well as numerous field studies, was his classical training in the art of 'wet' chemical analysis, which he taught to several of his students. Before the days of the XRF, ICP-MS and electron microprobe, wet chemistry was the only method to obtain compositional analyses for bulk rocks and mineral separates. However, the quality of wet chemical analyses depended entirely on the skill of the practitioner, and Ian was a well-known virtuoso! Ian's skill was particularly useful when his research group developed general models for the calculation of density, heat capacity and other liquid properties as a function of composition. Because the precision of Ian's wet chemical analyses for the major elements often exceeded what could be achieved by other methods, the errors on fitted partial molar quantities were substantially reduced. Ian also created dozens of new standards for UC Berkeley's electron microprobe over the years through his wet chemical analyses.
In the 1980's, Ian made his only foray into the spectroscopy of silicate liquids. Prior to 1985, the only way to study the microscopic structure of silicate liquids was to apply spectroscopy to quenched glasses as a proxy model. However, the abrupt jump in heat capacity at the glass-liquid transition is a testament to the fundamental difference between glasses and liquids. In order to identify the configurational changes that occur as a glass is heated to a liquid, Ian worked with Jonathan Stebbins and post-doc Jim Murdoch to build an apparatus to measure the NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) spectra of silicate liquids at high temperature. These measurements were the first to be performed under in-situ conditions and were critical for identifying the dynamic and continuous breaking of bonds that occurs in liquids, which led to a deeper understanding of why the thermodynamic properties of liquids differ from glasses and also provided insights into the mechanisms of viscous transport in melts.

For Ian, the thermodynamic property data were never a goal unto itself, and it was the application of these data to volcanic rocks through a thermodynamic model that fully captured his imagination. With his student, Mark Ghiorso, the first version of a crystal-liquid thermodynamic model applicable to magmatic systems was published in 1983. Mark Ghiorso has continued to develop this model over the ensuing decades into the widely used MELTS software package. Thus Ian's research efforts throughout the 1970's and 80's were critical to the development of subsequent thermodynamic models of crystal-liquid equilibrium, which are at the core of modern igneous petrology. They provide the only means to rigorously quantify a variety of magmatic reactions, including decompressional melting of the mantle under isentropic conditions, the assimilation of a solid assemblage by a crystallizing magma, and the oxygen gain or loss in a cooling magma, just to name a few.

It was during the early development of this general thermodynamic model that Ian realized it was necessary to quantify how ferric-ferrous ratios in magmatic liquids responded to oxygen fugacity, temperature and pressure, as the fO₂ of a magma can alter its crystallization path. This spawned yet another series of experiments throughout the 1980's with post-doc Richard Sack, visiting professor Attila Kilinc, and graduate student Victor Kress, and once again Ian's wet chemical skills (this time in analyzing ferrous iron concentrations, distinct from total iron) were critical to the success of these papers. From this effort has come the ability to calculate the oxidation state of any fresh, volcanic rock. This led Ian to publish a landmark paper (Carmichael, 1991) in which he showed that the range in oxygen fugacity of mantle-derived lavas varies by several orders of magnitude. The most reduced magmas are those erupted at mid-ocean spreading ridges and the most oxidized are those erupted at subduction zones with the strongest enrichment in the arc geochemical signature, namely minettes. This range in the fO₂ of mantle-derived lavas exceeds that observed in samples of spinel lherzolite, and this provided Ian with key evidence that if the mantle source region for minettes includes veins of phlogopite-pyroxenite in a lherzolite matrix, then these veins must be exceptionally oxidized, which in turn points to the highly oxidized nature of fluids that are derived from subducted slabs.

Throughout this period of time, in which Ian was making tremendous strides on the thermodynamics of magmatic systems, he was consistently pursuing field-based studies with his students. Ian always had a particular fascination with highly alkaline lavas, both because they are relatively rare and thus unusual, and also because of their diverse phenocryst assemblages, which leant themselves to Ian's earliest attempts to use thermodynamics to reveal the full range of silica activity in magmas. In the 1960's and 70's, Ian's field expeditions took him throughout the western U.S. with his students Jim Nicholls, Alan Smith, Barbara Nash, Jay Stormer and Frank Spera, as well as to far-flung locales (to Africa with Frank Brown, to the Aleutians with Bruce Marsh, and to New Guinea with Garry Lowder and Robert Heming). Ian also traveled to New Zealand, which in turn led Tony Ewart to spend a year at Berkeley in the mid-1970s. At this time, Ian began to work closer to home, as his student Wes Hildreth unraveled the erupted products of the Long Valley caldera, namely the Bishop Tuff in eastern California. Ian's failed efforts to raise National Science Foundation (NSF) funding for this project led him to often say, 'Never get discouraged if you are turned down twice by NSF, because this probably means you are on to something!' This was the case for Ian as the Long Valley magmatic system and its erupted products are now among the most intensively studied and well funded by NSF of any comparable volcanic center in the world. Also in the 1970's, one of Ian's students, Steve Nelson, made the first foray down to Mexico, and was followed soon after by Gail Mahood. For the next 30 years, Ian's field-based research moved to the Mexican volcanic arc, where at least 8 more students had projects (Jim Luhr, Toshi Hasenaka, Jamie Allan, Becky Lange, Paul Wallace, Kevin Righter, Gordon Moore, Dawnika Blatter) and where he befriended several Mexican colleagues, including Hugo Delgado Granados. Ian brought nearly 40 UC Berkeley undergraduates down to Mexico, who served as field assistants over the decades that Ian ran his field program there.

Ian's research in the Mexican volcanic arc, a classic subduction zone (and staging area for the growth and evolution of continental crust), led him to begin a program throughout the 1990's to quantify the role of H₂O in magmatic processes through experiments with an internally heated pressure vessel. With his students Kevin Righter, Gordon Moore, Dawnika Blatter, and post-doc, Jenni Barclay, he provided fully characterized phase diagrams applicable to the upper crust for a range of arc magmas (basalt to andesite), and, with Gordon Moore, performed a systematic study of water solubility in natural liquids covering a wide compositional range, which led to the first general model of water solubility applicable to most magmatic compositions. In a paper that is rapidly becoming a classic (Carmichael, 2002), where the phrase 'andesite aqueduct' is used in the title, Ian is among the earliest proponents of the concept that the crystallization of rapidly ascending arc magmas through the upper crust is driven largely by degassing and not by cooling, which at the time ran counter to conventional thinking. It was also at this time that he developed collaborations with Chuck DeMets and Joann Stock, encouraging them in their geophysical studies of the tectonics of western Mexico.

One of the most powerful aspects of Ian's approach to the study of magmatic rocks was the consistent interplay between theory, experiment, and field studies. This gave Ian insight into what are the most pressing experiments to perform and how they can be most effectively applied to examples in the rock record. This probably explains why Ian's numerous publications have a combined number of citations that exceeds 12,000 and why he has an h-index that exceeds 60, both of which demonstrate the depth and breadth of his impact. He has been widely recognized for his research achievements through the Bowen Award (American Geophysical Union), the Day Medal (Geological Society of America), the Murchison Medal (Geological Society of London), the Schlumberger Medal (Mineralogical Society of Great Britain), and the Roebling Medal (Mineralogical Society of America). He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, in addition to being a Fellow in the Geochemical Society, the Geological Society of America, the Mineralogical Society of America and the American Geophysical Union.

What is particularly impressive about Ian Carmichael's research record and mentoring of students is that it was achieved while he was deeply involved with university administration and editorial duties. Ian was surely the embodiment of the saying: If you want something done, give it to a busy person. For 15 years (1985-2000), he was both an Associate Dean and an Associate Provost on the Berkeley campus with a ≥ 50% appointment. Prior to that, he had two tours of duty (1972-76; 1980-82) as Chair of the Department of Geology and Geophysics (now Earth and Planetary Science), plus a two-year stint (1976-78) as an Associate Dean in the Graduate Division. From 1973-1990, he was Editor-in-Chief of Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology, and for another 14 years afterward he continued as an Associate Editor. In the early 1970's, Ian found the time to write a textbook, Igneous Petrology (Carmichael, Turner and Verhoogen, 1974), which remained a classic for decades. In 1996, while Ian was still an Associate Dean and Provost, he started an appointment as the Director of the Lawrence Hall of Science, UC Berkeley's public science center, which he continued for seven years. During this same time period, from 1996-1998, he was also Acting Director of the Botanical Gardens at UC Berkeley. Throughout all of this intensive and consuming administration that spanned three decades, Ian maintained a continuous series of active research grants funded by the National Science Foundation (and for much of the time, by the Department of Energy as well).

Perhaps it was because Ian was so busy with administrative duties that his time spent with students - thinking about the rocks - was so treasured. Despite two rather bum knees (derived from too many jumps during his paratrooping days in the British army), Ian often found the time to teach summer field camp to Berkeley undergraduates. And I should mention that, at the time, Berkeley faculty were not compensated in any way, financially or otherwise, for teaching camp. Ian particularly valued his time with graduate students, which often began with the long-standing tradition of morning coffee. A morning chat with Ian and his vast imagination, five days a week for 4-5 years, left its mark on his graduate students. The other tradition was Ian's evening seminars. When I was a student, these occurred every Tuesday: fall, winter, spring, summer. They knew no semester bounds, had no official course number, no credit hours. The event began with a 6 p.m. Chinese dinner across the street, and then we would troop back to the department for a seminar that usually began by 7:30 p.m. and was known to run till 11 p.m. and beyond. If you were the speaker, there was no such thing as being 'saved by the bell.' Looking back, I have never known a more demanding and probing audience when giving a lecture.

There is no doubt that Ian's greatest reputation was as a graduate advisor, who produced an extraordinary number of successful Ph.D. students. And it is not just their success, but also the diversity of what each of them does, that is so striking. Just about every aspect of the study of magmatism was pursued by Ian's students: from igneous field geology and experimental petrology to magma physics and thermodynamic modeling of melts and minerals - the Ph.D. theses of Ian's students span the spectrum. So what was Ian's secret? One factor was surely his creative and fertile imagination, as well as his infectious enthusiasm for the thrill that comes with discovery and achievement. He had a way of making the work we were engaged in seem deeply urgent, important, and exciting; a common refrain was, 'If it's worth doing, it was worth doing yesterday!' But perhaps the key ingredient was Ian's intellectual generosity, where he continuously and freely shared his ideas with his students - thrilled to see them run with it and become the one identified with it.

For all of us who crossed paths with Ian, he left an indelible mark. None of us escaped being shaped, in some way, by the hurricane force of his personality. For many of us, not just those of us who were his students, his exuberant pushing and prodding forced us to stretch ourselves and realize potentials we never knew we had. For this, Ian will be sorely missed and never forgotten.

Ian is survived by many loved ones, including his daughter Deborah Carmichael of Concord, California, his son Graham Carmichael of Tucson, Arizona, his daughter Anthea Carmichael of Berkeley, California, and his six grandchildren, Andrea, Colleen, Alexander, Olivia, Ian, and Calvin. His son, Alistair, predeceased him.

Rebecca Lange (University of Michigan)
October 2011

UC Berkeley Ph.D. students of Ian S. E. Carmichael (29):
J Nicholls, 1969 (U. Calgary); AL Smith, 1969 (Cal State U., San Bernadino); GG Lowder, 1970 (Malachite Resources, Australia); FH Brown, 1971 (U. Utah); WP Nash, 1971 (U. Utah); JC Stormer, 1971 (Rice U., emeritus); RF Heming, 1973 (consultant); BD Marsh, 1974 (Johns Hopkins U.); CR Bacon, 1975 (USGS); EW Hildreth, 1977 (USGS); FJ Spera, 1977 (UC Santa Barbara); SA Nelson, 1979 (Tulane U.); GA Mahood, 1979 (Stanford U.); MS Ghiorso, 1979 (OFM Research); K Kyser, 1979 (Queen's U., Canada); D Bice, 1980 (consultant); D Kosco, 1980 (lawyer); JF Luhr, 1980 (Smithsonian; deceased); JF Stebbins, 1983 (Stanford U.); ML Rivers, 1985 (U. Chicago); G Lux, 1985 (Charles Evans Inc.); T Hasenaka, 1986 (Kumamoto U., Japan); RA Lange, 1989 (U. Michigan); VC Kress, 1990 (U. Washington); D Snyder, 1991 (RAND Corporation); PJ Wallace, 1991 (U. Oregon); K Righter, 1994 (NASA Johnson Space Center); G Moore, 1997 (Arizona State U.); DL Blatter, 1998 (USGS)

Peter Deines (1936-2009)

March 01, 2009

Prof. Peter Deines, an authority on isotopic geochemistry, was well known especially for his research on the origins of diamonds and for his services to the Geochemical Society. He died at 72 in State College, Pennsylvania on February 2, 2009, after a protracted illness with cancer. His passion was the understanding and precise evaluation of isotopic fractionation factors for resolving deep geologic processes.

Born in Hann. Münden, northern Germany, he earned his Geologen Vordiplom at Friedrich Wilhelms University, then an MSc. and PhD. in Geochemistry and Mineralogy at Penn State University. Recognizing a gem, at his graduation in 1967 Penn State appointed him as a professor in geochemistry, a position he retained until nominal retirement in 2004 and Emeritus since then. Among his academic duties, he served in an extraordinary, over 60, administrative posts and university committees, including advisory to two University Presidents. To abet his teaching, he wrote for web distribution two currently available books, Solved Problems in Geochemistry, and Stable Isotope Geochemistry Course Notes. The College Wilson Award was given in recognition of his consummate teaching of geochemistry.

In 1981, he conceived as Treasurer of the Geochemical Society its first budgeting and financial planning system and continued its development until 1988. In appreciation of that contribution, he was elected to a unique Honorary Life Membership in the Society. His service also extended to becoming Chairman of Goldschmidt Conferences in 1988-1990 and as Co-Chair in 1991-1992 and 1994-1995. Some generations of geological scientists have had their careers directly furthered by Dr. Deines's devotion to the teaching and evolution of geochemistry.

By Hu Barnes, former President of the Geochemical Society

Dr. Lui-Hueng Chan

December 01, 2007