ESE Spring Newsletter

During fieldwork in Ethiopia, researchers sighted a lion

An overview of the recent publications, events and exciting work that's been happening in the Department of Earth Science and Engineering.

Contents

Publications
Conferences
Awards
Research Activity
Impact and Media
Fieldwork and Outreach
PhD Vivas
New Staff

Publications

Neethling, S.J., Brito-Parada, P.R., Hadler, K. & Cilliers, J.J. (2019). The transition from first to zero order flotation kinetics and its implications for the efficiency of large flotation cells. Minerals Engineering, 132, 149-161.

Sitorus, F., Cilliers, J.J. & Brito-Parada, P.R. (2019). Multi-criteria decision making for the choice problem in mining and mineral processing: Applications and trends. Expert Systems with Applications, 121, 1 393-417.

Trudgeon, D. P., Qiu, K., Li, X., Mallick, T., Taiwo, O. O., Chakrabarti, B., Yufit, V., Brandon, N. P., Crevillen-Garcia, D. & Shah, A. (2019). Screening of effective electrolyte additives for zinc-based redox flow battery systems. Journal of Power Sources, 412, 44–54.DOI: 10.1016/j.jpowsour.2018.11.030

Veillard C., John C., Krevor S. and Najorka J. (2019) Rock-buffered recrystallization of Marion Plateau dolomites at low temperature evidenced by clumped isotope thermometry and X-Ray diffraction analysis. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2019.02.012

Wang, P., Cilliers, J.J., Neethling, S.J. & Brito-Parada, P.R. (2019). The behavior of rising bubbles covered by particles. Chemical Engineering Journal, 365, 111-120.

Conference Talks, Lectures, Seminars

Pablo Brito-Parada gave an invited talk at the EIT Raw Materials' Expert forum on "Fine particle flotation and sustainable use of water in mineral processing" on 30^th January at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, in Dreden, Germany. 

Rebekah Moore and Mark Rehkämper, from the MAGIC research group, attended the 14^th Zinc Network Meeting in Cambridge on the 18^th January 2019. This annual meeting brings together researchers who are interested in the role of zinc in biology. Rebekah won the poster prize for her poster entitled "The potential of coupled Zn concentration and stable isotope analyses of blood serum and urine for assessing Zn status". Congratulations Rebekah!

Awards

Peter Harding memorial award

Congratulations to Prof. Jan Cilliers, who was awarded the Peter Harding Memorial Award to mark his final year lecturing an incredibly engaging module, and for his work behind the scenes supporting the RSM during his time as Head of Department!

The Peter Harding Memorial Award is traditionally awarded for outstanding long-term service for the Royal School of Mines Union (RSMU).

dave johnston mapping prize

Congratulations to Max Altenburg (RSM graduate last summer), who won the Tectonic Studies Group (TSG) Dave Johnston Mapping Prize!

Research Activity

Pablo Brito-Parada and Jan Cilliers attended the final meeting of the H2020 project "PRODIAS: Processing Dilute Aqueous Systems" at TU Kaiserslautern in Germany. The project, coordinated by BASF, ran from January 2015 to December 2018.

Impact and Media

Stephen Hicks was quoted by BBC News in the an article about the February earthquake in Surrey!

Fieldwork and Outreach

Ian Bastow and PhD student Chris Ogden spent five weeks in Ethiopia and northern Kenya building a new seismograph network in the Turkana Depression. This $1M project, the Turkana Rift Arrays Investigating Lithospheric Seismology (TRAILS) experiment, is a major NERC/NSF-funded effort that will see UK, US, Ethiopian, and Kenyan researchers use seismology and GPS data to better understand how rifting processes are operating in the Turkana region. They will also shed new light on the nature of the African Superplume. 

Many of the seismometers were deployed in schools and clinics, where the school children / locals were intrigued to learn about earthquakes and tectonics.  When the team goes back to service the instruments later this year, they will continue to engage with the locals, including contributing to basic resources such as pens, pencils, exercise books, calculators, and textbooks.  If you would like to make a contribution to an Ethiopian or Kenyan school, please let Ian know as soon as possible!

In addition to NERC and NSF, the TRAILS project is supported by a Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) award that Ian secured last year. This will enable several Ethiopian / Kenyan researchers to attend the EGU conference later this year.  GCRF funds will also be used to purchase computers for seismology PhD students at the Universities of Nairobi (Kenya) Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) and Dedan Kimathi University of Technology (DeKUT), so that they can participate fully in the experiment from its inception.

PhD Vivas

Congratulations to (Dr!) Dennis Vega-Garcia, who passed his PhD viva in February!

New Staff

Juliana Segura-Salazar joined the Department in January and will be working with Pablo Brito-Parada in the modelling of variability in mineral processing circuits, as part of the H2020 project IMPaCT.