AN EDUCATION IN EXPERIMENTAL PETROLOGY

Robert C. Newton was a long-time faculty member at the University of Chicago before moving to UCLA. This presentation will provide some insight into his lab during the 1980’s. I pursued my Ph.D. at Chicago from 1983 to 1988, most of this time in the Goldsmith-Newton lab. I also held a post-doc there in 1992-1993.

I learned a number of practical skills from Bob Newton, such as welding precious metals, fixing plumbing leaks, and tracing electrical short circuits. I became obsessed with accurate measurements and worried about oxygen fugacity. Much discussion in the lab centered on an experiment’s approach to equilibrium. I began to think in terms of balanced reactions. Partition coefficients and delta G, H, and S became more than arcane symbols, but instead powerful tools to answer petrological questions. Over time Bob was able to teach me to consider the larger picture, to observe Nature, and to believe in myself. Finally all of us learned the importance of listening to one’s colleagues, reading as much of the literature as possible (though no one could know as much of the literature as Bob), and writing the best manuscripts we could. Bob also showed us how important it was to thoroughly review scientific manuscripts, often spending several full days on one manuscript alone.

Recently, I have been studying a high pressure schist from the Taconian collisional system in western Massachusetts (Snoeyenbos and Koziol (2008) EOS transactions AGU 89(53), Fall Meet. Suppl., Abstract # V31E-07; Koziol and Snoeyenbos (2009) GSA Abstr. w/ Prog., 41(7) , p. 636; and Snoeyenbos and Koziol (2009) Eos Trans. AGU, 90(52), Fall Meet. Suppl., Abstract V43C-2263). These schists contain a relict population of garnet megacrysts with exsolved apatite, ilmenite and rutile, and also display unusual garnet textures around included zircons. The rest of this presentation will detail how an experimental petrologist approaches field studies, as illustrated by these unusual textures.