Ongoing projects in the argon laboratory

1. Modern Convergent margins:

• A study of blueschists from the internal and external Hellenides. PhD research of Andor Lips, GOA funded PhD student, jointly appointed at the Vrije University and Utrecht University has recently been completed. A copy of the PhD thesis is available upon request.
  
  
• The age of Miocene granite magmatism of northwest Sulawesi. A joint project with Henk Helmers, formerly from our Department, and with Dr. Jan Sopaheluakan, director of LIPI, Bandung, Indonesia.
  
  
• The age and paleomagmetism of intrusive magmatism at Sumba, Indonesia, joint research with Manfred van Bergen and Hans Wensink of Utrecht University.
  
  

2. Precambrian crystalline basement:

• Work in the Loftahammer area in south east Sweden, with Frank Beunk and Laurence Page from our departement .
  
  
• Supervision of PhD research of Bart Willigers, EU TMR funded PhD student, DLC, Copenhagen, a study of the Proterozoic dykes in the Naggsugtoqidian Orogen in Western Greenland.
  
  
• Pilbara project, jointly with Professor Stan White of the Structural Geology group at Utrecht University. A study of the tectonic, thermal, development of early Archean greenstones and granitoids in the Pilbara Craton in Western Australia.
  
  

3. Chronostratigraphy:

• Stage boundaries in the Phanerozoic. Joint research with Jan Smit, Hubert Vonhof, of the stratigraphy group at the Vrije University.
  
  
• Intercalibration of Astronomical timescales and Isotopic Timescales: Projects jointly supervised with Frits Hilgen and Professor Johan Meulenkamp of Utrecht University. A new GOA funded PhD project on high precision intercalibration of ash fall deposits in astronomically constrained sedimentary sequences from the Mediterranean Miocene and Oligocene has started in September 1998. Klaudia Kuiper is the PhD student currently working on this project. A collaboration funded jointly by NSF and ISES (the new Netherlands research institute in the solid Earth Sciences) has started with staff members of the Berkeley Geochronology Center, Berkeley, California.
  
  

4. Marine geology:

• The geochronology of Cretaceous seamount trails in the Western Pacific Seamount Province. GOA funded PhD research of Anthony Koppers, supervised jointly with Hubert Staudigel, of Scripps Institute of Oceanography, San Diego, CA has been completed recently. A copy of the PhD thesis is available upon request.
  
  
• The geochronology and geodynamics of eastern Pacific Plate development. Joint research with Professor Peter Stoffers, and Dr. John O'Connor of the department of Mineralogy and Petrology, University of Kiel, Germany. New initiatives are currently underway in the context of the cruises of RV Sonne: Hula (Hawaii and Musicians Seamount Chains), and Paganini (Galapagos, Cocos,Ridge).
  
  

5. Sedimentology and tectonics:

• Geochronology of detrital minerals of clastic sediments from the Swiss and Austrian Alps. A joint project with Professor Reinhard Gaupp and Hilmar von Eynatten of the University of Jena, Germany.
  
  
• An ALW funded research project has started in September 1998, with Barbara Carappa as the PhD student, working on the detrital provenance record of the Tertiary Piemointe Basins of nortwest Italy. Collaborations under this project include a strong collaboration with the CNR Torino research group of Dr. R. Polino.

6. Young basalts projects:

• Dating of Quarternary basalts is challenging because of the relatively low enrichment in radiogenic argon in such rocks. Several projects have now been competed successfully, including collaborations with:
  
  
• Bradley Singer (Geneva, Switzerland) and Malcolm Pringle (SURRC, East Kilbride, UK) on xenocrystic contaminastion in basalts from Chile.
  
  
• Catherine Johnson (DTM, Washigton DC), Lisa Tauxe, and Hubert Staudigel (SIO, La Jolla, Ca) on Nordeste Complex, Sao Michel, Azores.
  
  
• Tibor Dunai (VU-Amsterdam), on flow tops of basalts from Lanzarote.