Elmar Albers

The annual Goldschmidt conference is the largest geochemistry meeting in Europe and one of the biggest worldwide. The 2017 meeting took place in Paris, France, from 13 to 18 August. More than 4,000 scientists attended and presented current findings in about 150 sessions. The conference offered valuable possibilities to catch up with state-of-the-art science and, equally important, for networking. I was mostly interested in the session ‘New advances in active subduction zones’ as first results of the recent IODP Expedition 366 to the Mariana forearc, in which I participated, were presented here. Several scientists I met during the expedition attended the conference, so that we could discuss our individual post-cruise research projects as well as mutual projects. One of the shipboard scientists is particularly interested in my research and will, as we decided during the meeting, collaborate in it. Additionally, I had the chance meet up with another shipboard scientist, with whom a collaboration has already started, and discuss details and next steps of our study. Beyond that, results from an expedition adjacent to our study area were presented in the session—here, I could extend my general knowledge on subduction zone systems in the Western Pacific.

My own conference contribution was a poster with the title ‘High-temperature hydration of melt impregnated lithospheric mantle in the 1520’N F.Z. area, MAR’ in the session ‘Metamorphic and melting processes’. My co authors and I could draw links between gabbroic melt impregnations in peridotite recovered from oceanic core complexes, high-temperature hydrothermal alteration, and subsequent deformation of these impregnations. This may lead to the initiation of shear zones and possibly to the formation of core complexes. During the poster session I had interesting and fruitful discussions with other PhD students and with leading scientists in this field. Several of them are keen to read the publication on this study, which will hopefully be published shortly. Besides the scientific aspects, the city of Paris offered an impressive venue for the meeting and I was able to get together with former classmates, fellow students, and
colleagues from Europe, the United States, and Japan.

Now, after the meeting, I have the feeling that I successfully advertised my work, further paved the way for both ongoing and future studies, and that I was able to significantly expand my scientific network. I kindly thank GLOMAR for the financial support, which allowed me to take part in the Goldschmidt 2017, my first large scientific conference.