REE induced defects in minerals: A Spectroscopic Study – PhD Thesis by Nicky Horsburgh

Nicky Horsburgh's PhD thesis has recently been accepted by the University of St Andrews following her successful defence, so congratulations to Dr Horsburgh. The purpose of the work was to explore the luminescence of rare earth-bearing minerals as a tool for smart sorting. She was able to show that most rare-earth ore minerals can be …

A-team Quarterly Update – First Quarter 2020

It has been a strange time for the research group, ending with the new norm of social distancing and lockdown in the UK, but it has nevertheless been a successful quarter. This period has also seen the end of two major SoS RARE and HiTech AlkCarb consortia, and the process of developing the legacy of …

A-team Quarterly Update – Final Quarter 2019

It has been a period of writing up following our successful publications and fieldwork in the Summer and approaching the end of the SoS RARE and HiTech AlkCarb consortia. The two consortia had valedictory conferences at which some of the key findings were presented. In addition, our work was picked up by several national newspapers …

Public Lecture – From Nansen to the Polar Academy

This is an invitation to the Polar Academy event at St Andrews on the 23rd of January 2020. There will be a talk entitled "From Nansen to the Polar Academy - the Past, Present and Future of Greenland Exploration from Fife" led by Adrian Finch and members of his research group. We will talk about …

Anouk’s paper on REE in Eudialyte published

Eudialyte is potentially one of the most important sources of lanthanides, particularly high-value heavy rare earths such as Dy, Tb and Y. Furthermore, it is a mineral that occurs in deposits in several locations in Europe, potentially providing European sources for these critical metals. Anouk Borst's paper on the structural state of lanthanides and yttrium …

Report of our visit to Angola covered by the Applied Mineralogy group

Our recent visit to Angola has been covered by the bulletin of the Applied Mineralogy group. The issue also includes reports by Nicky Horsburgh and Kris Sokół on their presentations to SEG 2019 in Glasgow, which was partly funded by the AMG. Our Angolan work continues to attract favourable attention. Anouk presented a poster to …

MSc and PhD Opportunities in Applied Mineral Sciences

NOTE: 10th JANUARY 2020 deadline for applications. Myself and my colleagues in Mineral Sciences are advertising PhD topics to be filled in 2020. We are also looking for candidates for the two taught MSc programmes in Mineral Resources and MSc Geochemistry. A full list of PhD topics offered by the School of Earth and Environmental …

Precis of our work published in ‘The Conversation’

We are pleased to say that Will Hutchison's recent paper in Nature Communications was picked up by a major topics journal called 'The Conversation' who invited us to produce a layman's summary of the work. It is targeting a relatively young audience, so the bigger picture science is presented. Anouk came up with the M&Ms …

A-Team Quarterly Update – 3rd Quarter 2019

There have surely been fewer more successful times for our Research Group which has included three published papers, significant press coverage, two field expeditions, two short courses, grant awards and several published abstracts. We have also been involved in an outreach visit to Angola. Publications van de Ven M, Borst AM, Davies GR, Hunt EJ …

St Andrews visit to Angola, September 2019

St Andrews University recently took part in a workshop and fieldcourse in Angola, hosted by the Universidade Agonstinho Neto. The purpose of the trip was to outreach our work on alkaline igneous rocks and to learn more about similar rocks found in Angola. It started with a day workshop on frontiers in the study of …