GEMOC ARC National Key Centre

GEMOC communications

GEMOC web resources provide past Annual Reports, updated details on methods for new analytical advances and software updates (GLITTER), activities of research teams within GEMOC, synthesised summaries of selected research outcomes and items for secondary school resources. Undergraduate teaching is also web-based. Annual Reports from 2003 are available as downloadable pdf files on the GEMOC website as well as in html format. All previous Annual Reports are available in html format. Strong industry interaction in 2009 ranged from presentations to specific industry groups in their offices to numerous formal and informal workshops at GEMOC, and invited and plenary presentations at peak industry symposia, workshops and conferences nationally and internationally.

GEMOC PUBLICATIONS FOR 2010 ARE GIVEN IN APPENDIX 2

The 64 GEMOC Publications that were published in 2010 (and another 60+ already accepted for 2011) are mainly in high-impact international journals as listed by the internationally recognised Thomson ISI Citation data, and designated as A* and A journals by the ARC ERA (Excellence in Research) official journal ranking.

PARTICIPATION IN WORKSHOPS, CONFERENCES AND INTERNATIONAL MEETINGS IN 2010 (AND BEYOND)

GEMOC staff, postdoctoral researchers and postgraduates again had a high profile at peak metallogenic, geodynamic and geochemical conferences as convenors, invited speakers, or presenters, with 105 presentations including:

• 29th Nordic Geological Winter Meeting (Oslo, Norway)
• SGTSG 2010 Specialist Group in Tectonics and Structural Geology Conference 2010 (Port Macquarie, NSW)
• The Geological Society of North America Joint Section Meeting GSA North-Central and South-Central Sections both Celebrating their 44th Annual Meeting. GSA North-Central/South-Central 2010 (Branson, Missouri, USA)
• 13th Quadrennial IAGOD Symposium 2010  'Giant Ore Deposits Down-Under' (Adelaide, Australia)
• International Field Conference and Workshop on Tephrochronology, Volcanism and Human Activity, Active Tephra (Kyushu, Japan)
• Cordilleran Section – 106th Annual Meeting and Pacific Section, American Association of Petroleum Geologists (Anaheim, CA, USA)
• European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2010 (Vienna, Austria)
• Goldschmidt 2010, Earth, Energy and the environment (Knoxville, Tennessee, USA)
• 11th International Platinum Symposium (Sudbury, Ontario, Canada)
• 2010 Western Pacific Geophysics Meeting (Taipei, Taiwan)
• Australian Earth Sciences Convention 2010 (Canberra, Australia)
• The 20th General Meeting of the International Mineralogical Association - IMA2010 Bonds and Bridges: Mineral Sciences and their Applications (Budapest, Hungary)
• Australian Society of Exploration Geophysicists (ASEG) and Petroleum Exploration Society of Australia (PESA), 21st International Geophysical Conference and Exhibition (Sydney, Australia)
• 14th International Symposium on Deep Seismic Profiling of the Continents and their Margins (Seismix2010) (Cairns, Australia)
• Evolving Early Earth, 5th International Archean Symposium (5IAS) (Perth, WA)
• International Conference 'Geochemistry of Magmatic Rocks' as a Part of the School 'Geochemistry of Alkaline rocks' (Crimean Peninsula, Ukraine)
• XXX Reunión de la Sociedad Española de Mineralogía SEM (Madrid, Spain)
• State of the Arc Conference (SOTA 2010): Subduction to Eruption (Syros and Santorini, Greece)
• Australian Space Science Conference 2010 (Brisbane, Queensland, Australia)
• Society of Economic Geologists, SEG 2010 Conference (Keystone Resort, Colorado, USA)
• 5th SHRIMP Workshop and International Workshop on Advances in High Resolution Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (HR-SIMS) and LA-ICPMS Geochronology: Application to Geological Processes (Beijing, China)
• International Zircon Geochronology Training Course (Beijing, China)
• 2010 Chinese National Symposium of Petrology and Geodynamics (Peking University, Beijing, China)
• Groundwater 2010: The Challenge of Sustainable Management (Canberra, Australia)
• Australian Geothermal Energy Conference (Adelaide, Australia)
• New England Geology Symposium (UNE, Armidale, Australia)
• AGU 2010 Fall Meeting (San Francisco, California, USA)

Plenary Talks in 2010 included Bill Griffin (IMA, Hungary)

Keynote talks in 2010 included Sue O'Reilly, Yingjie Yang (Western Pacific Geophysics meeting, Taiwan), Graham Begg (AESC, Canberra), Sue O'Reilly, Yakov Weiss (IMA, Hungary), Bill Griffin, Graham Begg (5th International Archean Symposium, Perth)

Invited talks in 2010 included Simon Turner (AESC, Canberra), Bill Griffin (Western Pacific Geophysics Meeting, Taiwan) Sue O'Reilly (5th Shrimp Workshop, Beijing), Bill Griffin
(Int. Zircon Geochronology Training Course, Beijing), Craig O'Neill (AGU, San Francisco),
Sue O'Reilly, Elena Belousova, Norman Pearson (5th International Archean Symposium, Perth)

A full list of abstract titles for Conferences and Workshops attended is given in Appendix 4 and on the GEMOC website where full-text versions of many of the abstracts can also be found.

Other Conference Roles

Bill Griffin was co-convenor for session "Diamond crystallisation under natural and experimental conditions" at the IMA in Budapest August, 2010.

Norman Pearson co-convened Session V09 "Recent Advances in High Precision Trace Element and Isotopic Analysis" at the Western Pacific AGU meeting, held in Taipei, Taiwan, in June.

Simon Turner and Tracy Rushmer co-convened the 5th "State of the Arc" meeting on Santorini in September 2010.

Simon Turner presented a U-series isotope short course in Geneva.

Elena Belousova wass co-convener of session "Russia and Central Asia" at the 13st IAGOD Quadrennial Symposium, Adelaide, South Australia, April 2010.

Mark Lackie co-convened the ASEG 21st International Geophysical Conference and Exhibition, Sydney.

Craig O'Neill convened sessions "Geophysics and Geothermal Applications I and II" at the ASEG/PESA 21st International Geophysical Conference and Exhibition held in Sydney.

Esteem Factors and Outreach

Sue O'Reilly was awarded the title of Distinguished Professor, reflecting "exceptional distinction and an outstanding contribution to her discipline" and "outstanding, internationally recognised performance and continuing achievement in the three elements of academic endeavour: teaching, research and community engagement". Vice-Chancellor Steven Schwartz made the formal presentation at the Macquarie Research Excellence Awards in October 2010.

Sue O'Reilly and Bill Griffin were invited visitors of the Taiwan Academy of Sciences for 2 weeks in June 2010.

Simon Turner was co-editor of the Wiley-Blackwell book "Timescales of Magmatic Processes". Authors of chapters included Bill Griffin, Craig O'Neill, Sue O'Reilly, Tracy Rushmer and Simon Turner.

Nathan Daczko was awarded the E.S. Hills medal at Australian Earth Sciences Conventions 2010 held in July in Canberra. This new medal recognised his outstanding contribution to the geological sciences. See http://www.gsa.org.au/recognition/eshills.html

Juan Carlos Afonso was selected 2010 "Most Outstanding Young Scientist" by the Tectonics Division of the European Geosciences Union.

In June 2010 Norman Pearson was a visiting scientist at the Institute for Earth Sciences, Academia Sinica where he assisted in the development of their facilities for in situ isotopic analysis. During this visit he gave an invited lecture at the pre-AGU Workshop "Frontiers in Geochemical Research".

Juan Carlos Afonso was the 2010 Honorary Collins Lecturer at the Department of Earth Sciences, Carleton University, Ottawa.
Nathan Daczko continued as chair of the Geological Society of Australia Specialist Group in Tectonics and Structural Geology (SGTSG), and chaired the organising committee for the 2010 Field Conference.

Sue O'Reilly was Chief Guest Editor of the special Lithos Volume 120 "The Lithosphere - Asthenosphere boundary: nature, formation and evolution from Hadean to now" and Juan Carlos Afonso and Bill Griffin were co-guest editors.

Sue O'Reilly was the Geoscience Panel Member for ICREA (Catalan Institute for Advanced Research), Barcelona, Spain in 2010.

Tracy Rushmer is a NSF (National Science Foundation) panel member for Geochemistry and Petrology (2010-2012).

Juan Carlos Afonso was appointed Division Officer of the European Geosciences Union (Geodynamics Division).

Simon Turner continued as Director of the Geochemical Society.

Bill Griffin continued as an invited founding core member of the new International Precambrian Research Centre of China (IPRCC) at Beijing SHRIMP Centre and the Department of Geology, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences.

Bruce Schaefer was the AuScope Earth Composition and Evolution Component Leader and coordinated the National Geochemistry Program for the AuScope NCRIS capability; http://www.auscope.org.au.

Simon Turner served on the AuScope II steering committee.

Tracy Rushmer was the Science faculty representative for the LH Martin Institute shortcourse on Women in Research Leadership.

Tracy Rushmer continued as a "Member at Large" on the Geological Society of America Penrose Committee, appointed for 2007-2010.

Sue O'Reilly continued as a member of the International Kimberlite Conference Committee.

Norman Pearson continued as a founding member of the international organising committee of the "Working Group on Data Acquisition, Handling and Interpretation in Laser Ablation U(-Th)-Pb Geochronology".

Bruce Schaefer was an Expert Examiner in cultural heritage for the Federal Government in extraterrestrial materials.
Juan Carlos Afonso continued as a Topical Editor of the EGU journal Solid Earth.

Representation on editorial boards included: Lithos (Griffin, O'Reilly, Rushmer); Geological Society of America Bulletin (Griffin); Journal of Petrology (Turner); Solid Earth (Schaefer); Acta Geologica Sinica (Griffin); Journal of Exploration Geophysics, Managing Editor (Lackie).

Media

An interview with Sue O'Reilly was published in "The Australian" (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/gem-of-a-centre-at-macquarie/story-e6frgcjx-1225998310865) highlighting the outstanding ERA (Excellence in Research for Australia) results for the Earth Sciences, Geology and Geochemistry categories (top rating of 5 for each of these assessed categories at Macquarie). The full ERA results can be seen at http://www.arc.gov.au/era/outcomes_2010.htm.

Sue O'Reilly was invited to contribute two articles to the Mantle Plumes website:
http://www.mantleplumes.org/LithosphereRemnants.html
http://www.mantleplumes.org/CapeVerde.html

Bruce Schaefer commented on a News article in Cosmos "Solar System now two million years older", August 2010, http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/3660/full.

Craig O'Neill was active in media outlets including:
Enceladus episodic overturn, Scientific American, January, 2010, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=saturn-enceladus-episodic-overturn;
Saturn's ice moon shows signs of life, The Australian, 11 Janurary, 2010 (Page 5), http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/saturns-ice-moon-shows-signs-of-life/story-e6frg8y6-1225817874008.
Craig O'Neill also published a commentary about the Japan Earthquake in Cosmos "The Anatomy of a Megathrust Earthquake" http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/features/online/4203/the-anatomy-a-megathrust-earthquake?

VISITORS

GEMOC fosters links nationally and internationally through visits of collaborators to undertake defined short-term projects or short-term visits to give lectures and seminar sessions.  Formal collaborative arrangements are facilitated by ARC Linkage grants with reciprocal funding from international collaborators.

All Australian and international visitors are listed in Appendix 3.

They have participated in:

<collaborative research

technology exchange

seminars, discussions and joint publications

collaboration in postgraduate programs

PUBLICATION SPOTLIGHT

GEMOC Publication #671, "The growth of the continental crust: Constraints from zircon Hf-isotope data" by Belousova et al. was the hottest article in Lithos from June to October 2010 and remains 2nd on the most-downloaded list to June 2011.

GEMOC Publication #650, "The continental lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary: Can we sample it?" by O'Reilly and Griffin was the hottest article in Lithos from October to December 2010 and remains the most downloaded paper in Lithos from November 2010 to June 2011.

GEMOC Publication #625 "Buoyant ancient continental mantle embedded in oceanic lithosphere (Sal Island, Cape Verde Archipelago) by Coltorti et al. and #635 "The mechanics of continental lithosphere-asthenopshere coupling" by O'Neill et al., were also in the top 25 list of hottest articles in in Lithos from October to December 2010.

GEMOC Publication #409 "Imaging chemical and thermal heterogeneity in the sub-continental lithospheric mantle with garnets and xenoliths: Geophysical implications" by O'Reilly and Griffin received an award for the most cited paper in Tectonophysics since 2005.

GEMOC Publication #428 "Comment: Hf-isotope heterogeneity in standard zircon 91500" by Griffin, Pearson, Belousova and Saeed received an award for the most cited paper in Chemical Geology since 2005.

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