GEMOC ARC National Key Centre

Appendix 7: GEMOC postgraduate and honours opportunities

GEMOC has a flourishing postgraduate research environment with postgraduate students from many countries (including France, Germany, China, Russia and Australia).  Scholarships funding tuition fees and a living allowance are available for students with an excellent academic record or equivalent experience.  These include:

• Australian Postgraduate Awards (APA):  available for Commonwealth citizens to cover tuition fees and living allowance, with a closing date in late October annually

• Research Areas and Centres of Excellence (RAACE) scholarships:  available for Australian citizens who wish to undertake a postgraduate program in a Centre of Excellence at Macquarie University (eg GEMOC)

• International Postgraduate Research Scholarships (IPRS):  available to overseas students to cover tuition fees with a closing date in late September annually

• International Macquarie University Research Scholarships (IMURS):  that can provide a living allowance and which can be applied for at any time if the applicant has been accepted for enrolment in a higher degree

Macquarie University also provides research funding through a competitive internal scheme and GEMOC’s funded projects (see Appendix 5) provide further resources to support postgraduate research projects.

Postgraduate projects are tailored to your expertise and interests within the framework of GEMOC’s research goals.  GEMOC carries out interdisciplinary research across the boundaries of petrology, geochemistry, tectonics, metallogenesis, geodynamics and geophysics to explore the nature and evolution of the lithosphere and global geodynamics.   Current funded projects are based in Australia, Antarctica, Canada, China, Taiwan, Italy, France, Siberia, Norway, North America, South America, Africa, Kerguelen Islands and other global locations (see the section on GEMOC’s Research Program).

GEMOC postgraduate programs have opportunities through access to our outstanding analytical facility (see Technology Development section) with currently unique technologies and instrumentation configurations to tackle exciting large-scale problems in the Geosciences.

Examples of broad PhD project areas include:

• Lithosphere structure and geochemistry: mantle provinciality and tectonism

• Granitoid and mineralised provinces along western Pacific convergent margins

• Fluid-vapour transfer of elements in the crust and mantle

• Heat production and evolution of the crust: crust-mantle interaction

• Geophysical applications to lithosphere studies

• Isotopic and trace element geochemistry: mantle and crustal systems

• Metal isotopes: applications to ore formation

• Magma genesis and crustal evolution: includes trace elements of accessory minerals, isotopic fingerprints

Honours Opportunities

Honours Scholarships of up to $2,500 are available for students with exceptional undergraduate track records who are undertaking an Honours Program within the framework of GEMOC’s goals.  For further information, see the Annual Reports on the GEMOC website for examples of past Honours projects.

Potential applicants should discuss possible projects with a potential supervisor and the Director of GEMOC before applying.