I am a second year PhD student at the Department of Geoscience and Petroleum, NTNU – Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. For my PhD I am studying Earth’s mantle properties, mantle melt extraction mechanisms and their importance for the formation of volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits. As for many other PhD students in geosciences my research topic is quite specific, which makes it complicated to find relevant courses and workshops. In the beginning of spring semester 2017 I got to know about an International Winter School: Melting and fluid/melt-rock reactions in the mantle, at the University of Pavia, Italy. The School is organized by the Italian Group of Petrography of the Italian Society of Mineralogy and Petrology in collaboration with several Italian universities. The study program of the Winter School with all the topics covered during the intense one week course was essentially relevant for my research project. The program of the course included not only theoretical approach to studying mantle processes, but also analytical, geochemical and thermodynamic study of different mantle lithologies and melt-rock interaction in the mantle. Furthermore, the program included basics of numerical modeling of mantle processes. Lectures were accompanied by exercises and discussions. The course was taught by a number of leading scientists in mantle processes from different universities from all over the world, including Italy, Switzerland, Germany and USA. Basics of modelling were taught by the software developers themselves. All this, in addition to a good organization, made the course very comprehensive, providing the participants advanced knowledge of mantle melting processes.
I am highly satisfied with the Melting and fluid/melt-rock reactions in the mantle Course/Winter School at the University of Pavia as it allowed me not only to increase my knowledge of the topic, but also meet scientists and a number of PhD students doing research within the same field, discuss my findings with them and get a feedback on the work I have done so far. I appreciate this opportunity and would like to express my gratitude to the Norwegian Research School for Dynamics and Evolution of Earth and Planets (DEEP) for the travel grant support that made it possible for me to attend the Winter School at the University of Pavia.
Anna Pryadunenko,
PhD candidate,
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)