NEXT TALK: Next talk 31st of October, 7pm - Sesonal mood disorders
Cittie Of Yorke, 22 High Holborn, WC1V 6BN
What can meteorites tell us about the Solar System?
Tuesday, 25th of October 2016
Meteorites are fragments of rock and metal which arrive on Earth from many different parts of the Solar System, particularly the asteroid belt; a few come from Mars and/or the Moon. Many of them were formed in the early history of the Solar System and can tell us about how planets were formed. Studying different kinds of meteorites, we can investigate the material from which planets were made, the interiors of terrestrial planets like the Earth, the processes which occur on the surfaces of asteroids, and the origin of water on the Earth. Some rare meteorites contain material which pre-dates the formation of the Solar System ("pre-Solar grains"), and can be used to test astrophysical models of the evolution of stars.
Professor Hilary Downes did a PhD in Geochemistry at the University of Leeds, working on a large extinct volcano in the French Massif Central. She did my post-doc in the University of Edinburgh. By that time she had become fascinated by the small fragments of rock ("xenoliths") brought to the surface by volcanoes, and she wanted to study them instead of the volcanoes themselves. She then got a lectureship at Birkbeck College, which is the evening teaching wing of the University of London, teaching petrology to part-time mature students. She continued to investigate xenoliths from the Earth's mantle and lower crust in places as far afield as northern Russia, Wyoming, Romania, Hungary, Italy, and the Cape Verde islands. She became a Professor of Geochemistry at Birkbeck and also spent 10 years as Head of Department.