Robert Wilhelm Bunsen Medal 2006

The French scientist Pascal Richet has won the prestigious EGU Wilhelm Bunsen Medal for his seminal achievements in advancing our fundamental understanding of geomaterials, and in providing badly-needed conceptual frameworks for the thermodynamic and transport of matter within the Earth.

The Wilhelm Bunsen medal has been established by the Division on Geochemistry, Mineralogy, Petrology & Volcanology in recognition of the scientific achievements of Robert Wilhelm Bunsen. It will be awarded for distinguished research in Geochemistry, Mineralogy, Petrology & Volcanology..

Professor Richet is working at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris.

Resumé

Pascal Richet has been a pioneer of mineral and melt physics for a quarter century. His early work on the thermodynamic and transport properties of silicate melts led to remarkable insights and provided a thermodynamic basis for the calculation of transport properties that is still being analysed and tested to this day. His groundbreaking studies of the phenomenon of pre-melting in crystals has contributed substantially to the understanding of elastic modulus variations in sub melting temperature solid phases. Finally, his calorimetric studies of silicates have significantly advanced our picture of melt energetics.
Without Pascal Richet, our present picture of silicate melts would be much more primitive than it is, full of many of the myths and uncertainties which he has almost single-handedly banished from the literature.

Medal Lecture

Professor Richet will accept his medal and give his Medal lecture during the EGU General Assembly, to be held in Vienna, Austria from 2 – 7 April 2006. The lecture ‘Volcanic eruptions and physics of lavas’ starts Thursday, 6 April at 16:30 h in Lecture Room.

More information:
http://www.copernicus.org/EGU/awards/medallists/_2006/robert_w_bunsen.html