This award will provide partial support for the travel and associated expenses of graduate students and post doctoral scientists to attend the 6th Orogenic Lherzolite Conference in Marrakech, Morocco, May 4-15, 2014. The Orogenic Lherzolite Conferences are held at widely spaced intervals to bring together the international scientific community interested in studies of the Earth's upper mantle, as exposed in alpine Orogenic belts, ophiolites, continental margins, and the sea floor. In these conference, international scientists present new research relating to shallow mantle evolution, magma genesis, and the role of peridotites and serpentinites in different tectonic environments. The overall objective of this upcoming meeting will be to assemble specialists in studies of peridotite massifs and upper mantle processes for a field conference to share recent results and discuss key outcrops in a group setting. Many geochemists, petrologists and geophysicists primarily situated in laboratories or using remote sensing, particularly marine scientists, have little opportunity to examine the record of mantle processes visible in the field as exposed in rock outcrops. In past conferences of this nature, there has been a focus on providing all participating scientists with the opportunity to visit classic field outcrops, which is a particularly valuable education experience for students and post-docs at the early stage of their careers. The Beni Bousera orogenic lherzolite is one such classic mantle locality, where processes of mantle melting were first identified and studied in a sub-continental or continental margin setting.
This award will benefit early career scientists to participate in the major international meeting that is exclusively focused on research and field observation of upper mantle composition and processes. Their participation will enable them the tools to advance their careers both through examining mantle outcrops and processes in-situ, and through interaction with a large group of international experts that is only infrequently assembled. This meeting also serves as an introduction for students and post-docs to allow them to network with each other as a cohort and also with others from the international scientific community working on these research questions. It is expected that these personal interactions will lead to valuable research collaborations for the next generation of scientists.
This award funded the participation of 7 graduate students and post-docs in an international conference and field excursion on the composition an evolution of the Earth's mantle in Marakech Morocco. They represented 6 different universities in Arizona, Oregon, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Rhode Island and Florida. Morocco is the location of one of the best examples of mantle rocks from the deep earth exposed at its surface. The early career scientists whose travel was funded by this award visited these outcrops in the mountains of Morocco, to examine the rocks and the features they record related to the formation of magmas, and their transport out of the Earth's interior to the surface. These rocks are also the host to several types of important economic minerals, and are actively mined for chrome and nickel around the world. These are strategic elements critical to a wide range of manufactured products from electronics to cars to steel. Enhancing the training a new generation of scientists who can evaluate their economic potential is an important goal of this award. Critically the students and post-docs were able to network both with their peer group and established world-class scientists working of the evolution of the Earth's mantle and interior, and the generation of magmas, a key element in the career of any young scientist. In addition the students and post-docs presented 7 papers and poster talks on their thesis and post-graduate work, and were able to listen to the presentations of a large group of the most prominent international scientists in their field, thus setting the stage for future international collaborations.
