Skip to main content

Steven Jacobsen Named Distinguished Lecturer by Mineralogical Society of America

February 4, 2013

Steven Jacobsen, assistant professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, has been selected as a Mineralogical Society of America Distinguished Lecturer.

Jacobsen is one of three lecturers internationally to receive this honor for 2007-2008. He will deliver 10 lectures in the United States, Canada and Europe during the next academic year. Jacobsen's lecture series will explore the possibility that several ocean volumes of water may exist within a deep layer of the Earth's mantle, locked inside high-pressure minerals more than 250 miles below the surface.

Dr. Jacobsen specializes in the physics and chemistry of Earth and planetary materials. His research spans problems in mineralogy, global geophysics and geochemistry, high-pressure physics and chemistry, water distribution in the Earth, and the role of materials in renewable energy technology. Jacobsen studies the origin and physical properties of Earth materials through experimental mineral physics. Here his central challenge is linking the atomic and geophysical scales in a variety of materials encompassing the major Earth-forming minerals, unusual phases with surprising structures, and advanced technological entities with novel properties. Jacobsen's investigations range from Antarctic ice cores to the properties of iron-oxide at the core-mantle boundary. Much of his research, funded in part by the NSF, is conducted at the Argonne National Laboratory's Advanced Photon Source. Jacobsen has authored or co-authored over 40 peer-reviewed research articles and has edited two special volumes. He recently co-edited a book, along with EPS colleague Suzan van der Lee, titled "Earth's Deep Water Cycle," a collection of peer-reviewed research papers related to water cycling in the deep mantle. The book was published in January 2006 by the American Geophysical Union (AGU). --Source: NU News Room