The Challenges Facing 21st Century Critical Metals: From Mantle to Mine to Magnet

I presented a talk to the St Andrews Centre for Climate, Energy, Environment and Sustainability (StACEES) on Wednesday 24th November. The talk was on-line and recorded for others to watch. In this talk, I consider the commitments made by many countries to decarbonise their economies. The route chosen usually involves the use of ‘renewable’ energies …

A-Team Quarterly Update – Third Quarter 2021

The last few months have seen a return to in-person conferences, alongside face to face teaching and fieldwork, and our group has been at the forefront of restarting these more human forms of teaching and learning. In addition we have had seven more publications out and sustained media interest in Tim's group. We have had …

A-Team Quarterly Update – Second Quarter 2021

The last few months have seen a return to field studies (within the UK so-far) and our group has been at the forefront of restarting field teaching. Adrian and Nicky led the undergraduate 3rd-year mapping field course to Mull in April. In addition we have had a major award from the Mineralogical Society, six more …

New Sulfur Isotopes Paper Out

A new paper led by Will Hutchison has just been published in the journal Earth & Planetary Science Letters. The paper uses modelling of sulfur isotopes across the entire Gardar Province to understand the sources of rare element enrichment. It presents a model in which Ketilidian subduction enriched the Sub-Continental Lithospheric Mantle, and we propose …

Paper Honoured with the Howie Award by the Mineralogical Society

I am pleased to announce that the Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland have awarded the Howie Medal to one of our papers on eudialyte-hosted rare earth deposits. The award recognises the 'best paper' in mineralogy for the previous year and includes analysis of its "1. Novelty, 2. Inter-disciplinarity, 3. Applicability and 4. How …

A-Team Quarterly Update – First Quarter 2021

It has been an important quarter with honours for Anouk, Adrian and Nicky. Tim has had some important coverage on British TV for his archaeological work and we are also pleased that the undergraduate group has published their data from fieldwork on the Younger Giant Dyke Complex in Southern Greenland. The view lNE from Central …

A-Team Quarterly Update – Final Quarter 2020

It has been an important quarter with a major award for Anouk Borst and several important manuscripts moving towards publication, which we hope to have out in 2021. We are welcoming five new members of the team, including Lot Koopmans, who is working on a research degree with Adrian and Will McCarthy on the magnetic …

MSc and PhD Opportunities in Applied Mineralogy and Petrology

Myself and colleagues in the Applied Mineral and Petrological Sciences are advertising PhD topics to be filled in 2021. We are also looking for candidates for the two taught MSc programmes in Strategic Earth Resources and Geochemistry. A full list of PhD topics offered by the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of St …

Research Presentation on the Younger Giant Dykes of Greenland

The student group from St Andrews who were in Southern Greenland in 2019 have given an presentation on their work and the implications for magmatism in the Gardar province of South Greenland. The talk was given to the Edinburgh Geological Society by Alasdair Murphy, Lot Koopmans, Lucy Mathieson, Rob Webster and Rory Changleng on 12 …

Anouk wins Prestigious Award

I am pleased to say that Anouk Borst has been awarded the Max Hey Medal by the Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland. This medal is awarded "to recognise existing and on-going research of excellence… [by an early career researcher] evidence of which is provided in the form of work published in highly-regarded, international …