Student research update: JohnRyan MacGregor
JohnRyan MacGregor, an M.S. student working with Research Professor Ed Grew, took two trips in May and June, 2011 related to his investigations into boron-bearing minerals in granulite facies rocks and the crustal boron budget. The first trip was to the Geological Association of Canada-Mineralogical Association of Canada spring meeting in Ottawa, where he presented a poster on his recent observations on the microstructural relations among three borosilicate minerals in granulite-facies rocks from the Larsemann Hills, Prydz Bay, Antarctica near Australia’s Davis Station. Unfortunately he has not gotten to this remote field site where his samples came from. But following the GAC-MAC meeting, JohnRyan toured similar rock types along with Ed Grew and Dr. Richard K. Herd, Curator of the National Collections of the Geological Survey of Canada. Dr. Herd guided JohnRyan to the classic locality for prismatine near Kazabazua, Quebec, north of Ottawa. Prismatine is one of the three borosilicate minerals JohnRyan is studying, and here he could collect this mineral, which is readily seen in highway road cuts.
JohnRyan’s second trip was to Edinburgh, Scotland, where he spent two weeks in the Ion Microprobe Facility in the School of Geosciences, Grant Institute at the University of Edinburgh, measuring boron isotope ratios in the three borosilicate minerals tourmaline, prismatine and grandidierite from the Larsemann Hills. His objectives were to measure the distribution of the two naturally occurring isotopes of boron among the three minerals and learn what the isotopic ratios tell us about metamorphic processes and origin of the unusually high concentrations of boron in the Larsemann Hills rocks. JohnRyan learned to operate the Cameca ims-4f ion microprobe on his own with lab staff to assist only if a problem arose. Following the lab work JohnRyan presented his poster at the 11th International Symposium on Antarctic Earth Sciences, which was held on another campus of the University of Edinburgh. This gave JohnRyan a chance to meet scientists who had worked in the Larsemann Hills and nearby areas and hear their presentations.
