An update from the AuScope Geochemistry Network (AGN) team

The AGN team, led by Prof Brent McInness at Curtin University, is co-designing a platform with Australia’s geochemistry community to host and provide access to FAIR and geolocated geochemical data from around the world that is produced in Australian…

The AGN team, led by Prof Brent McInness at Curtin University, is co-designing a platform with Australia’s geochemistry community to host and provide access to FAIR and geolocated geochemical data from around the world that is produced in Australian Laboratories. Image: Lithodat

Despite a challenging start to the year, we have been working busily behind the scenes around the country to co-design with the geochemistry community a digital solution that makes geochemical data FAIR. And excitingly, our team has grown.

Our activities

The AuScope Geochemistry Laboratory Network (AGN) is working towards making geochemical data available, and easily accessible via a digital platform to the national, and even international community.

Currently, we are focussed on making sampling sites and sample curation locations discoverable in order to present the efforts of sampling campaigns. Knowing where a sample came from and where it is now will facilitate sample acquisition/sharing and collaboration between researchers and industries in the future.

In March 2020 we decided to partner with Lithodat to help the AGN build a landing page, develop a data model and make geochemistry data available to the community through a state of the art online platform that makes samples and data discoverable and is interactive (allowing first-order integrations). We are aiming to have a beta version of the AusGeochem portal that allows on-the-fly calculations and data visualisation online, and ready for community review, in mid-2020.

Also in March, we planned an AGN workshop in Melbourne to coincide with the RDA Plenary and C3DIS conferences, but unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic set in earlier.

At that event, we hoped to meet with the geoscience community to establish thoughts around metadata and develop expert advisory groups to the AGN. However, we will revert to communicating together via other means — email in the first instance, with an invitation to join the expert advisory groups shortly.

Finally, we are excited to welcome a few new AGN staff to come on board in the last quarter, joining our extended team of 19 across Curtin, Melbourne, and Macquarie universities. Please enjoy the rest of this news update with a brief introduction from these new team members.

Until the next update, take care!

Dr Alexander Prent (Alex)
AGN Coordinator

Introducing Erin

Erin’s passion lies in geochronology, making sense of the world by dating rocks through time. Beyond, you can find her playing piano or enjoying a game of mixed netball with her mates. Image: Dr Erin Matchan

Erin’s passion lies in geochronology, making sense of the world by dating rocks through time. Beyond, you can find her playing piano or enjoying a game of mixed netball with her mates. Image: Dr Erin Matchan

I am one of the Data Science Coordinators in the AGN team and will be working with the wider Australian Ar-Ar geochronology community to help establish a discipline-specific data structure for the AusGeochem database.

I manage the Ar-Ar Geochronology Laboratory at the University of Melbourne and my research primarily focuses on refining procedures to date Quaternary volcanic eruptions via multi-collector noble gas mass spectrometry and re-evaluating natural mineral standards used in Ar-Ar geochronology to improve the accuracy of the technique. I hope to further push the limits of the Ar-Ar dating technique to progressively younger, low-potassium samples to answer geological, archaeological, and paleoenvironmental questions as part of interdisciplinary collaborations.

Outside of work, I enjoy playing the piano, social mixed netball, and MIG welding.

Introducing Sam

Sam seeks to understand how our planet operates, combining geology with data science. He is also deadly serious about travelling and baseball. Image: Dr Sam Boone

Sam seeks to understand how our planet operates, combining geology with data science. He is also deadly serious about travelling and baseball. Image: Dr Sam Boone

As an AGN Data Science Coordinator, my role is to liaise with the Australian thermochronology research community and the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Melbourne to help facilitate the development of AusGeochem, AGN’s cloud-based geochemistry data portal.

My research concerns improving our understanding of the thermal and tectonic evolution of Earth's crust in relation to orogenesis, continental breakup and landscape evolution by combining a range of temperature-sensitive radiometric dating techniques, such as fission track and (U-Th-Sm)/He thermochronology, with geochemistry, structural geology and stratigraphy in field and laboratory work.

Through integrated and collaborative studies, I endeavour to contribute to high-impact geoscience research that provides fundamental insights into the tectonic and geodynamic mechanisms which control how our planet operates. Before becoming a geologist, I pursued a career in baseball, playing in the US, Germany, Australia and Hungary.

Introducing Olivier

Olivier (left) is the technical genius behind Macquarie University’s geochemistry laboratory, alongside his colleague, Yoann (right) who you can read about next. Outside of geoscience, he explores further into other natural sciences, namely underwat…

Olivier (left) is the technical genius behind Macquarie University’s geochemistry laboratory, alongside his colleague, Yoann (right) who you can read about next. Outside of geoscience, he explores further into other natural sciences, namely underwater with a camera in hand. Image: Dr Olivier Alard

I run Macquarie GeoAnalytical, a large analytical facility focused on geochemistry, as such I try to provide the AGN community with performing machines, state of the art methodologies and new analytical techniques.

I am a specialist of siderophile and chalcophile geochemistry and sulfide petrology. For the last few years I have investigated the behaviour of volatile elements such as H, C, N and of course S, se and Te recently.  I also always had a keen interest in analytical technique development, especially involving Laser Ablation and Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (including single quad, Multicollector and more recently tandem ICP-MS). My ambition is to push the envelope of in-situ geochemistry using splitting technique and daring correlative approaches.

When I am not in the lab, I am scuba diving somewhere chasing for the ultimate underwater photograph.

Introducing Yoann

Yoann is another master of the tools at Macquarie University’s geochemistry laboratory. He likes to tackle geological problems at work, and ultimate frisbee opponents in international tournaments outside of it. Image: Dr Yoann Gréau

Yoann is another master of the tools at Macquarie University’s geochemistry laboratory. He likes to tackle geological problems at work, and ultimate frisbee opponents in international tournaments outside of it. Image: Dr Yoann Gréau

As the AGN Geochemical Development scientist, I oversee the zircon geochronology activities (U-Pb, Hf isotopes) at Macquarie University and I investigate the development of novel analytical techniques to benefit the geological community.

My research and expertise is in the development and use of in situ laser-ablation mass-spectrometry methods (e.g. Re-Os in sulfides using LA-MC-ICP-MS), as well as in mantle geochemistry, notably on the effect of metasomatism and fluid-rock interaction in the lithospheric mantle.

I am interested in promoting and generalising the use of large integrated geochemical dataset as tools to adequately constrain and solve geological problems. Outside of the laboratory, I am a competitive Ultimate Frisbee player, who will represent Australia at the next World Ultimate Championships.

Introducing Guillaume

Guillaume out ‘living the dream’: exploring geology before bringing it back to the GEMOC Laboratory at Macquarie University for geochemical and geochronological analysis. Image: Guillaume Florin

Guillaume out ‘living the dream’: exploring geology before bringing it back to the GEMOC Laboratory at Macquarie University for geochemical and geochronological analysis. Image: Guillaume Florin

I have just started as AuScope Data Scientist for the Macquarie Node as part of my full position at the University to perform technology and geochemical method development for in-situ elemental and isotopic measurements. I’m a specialist of non-traditional isotopes (e.g. Germanium) and siderophile/chalcophile elements, and during my thesis I mostly worked on metal and sulfide formation in primitive meteorites using both Multicollector- (MC), and Laser Ablation- (LA) Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer ICP-MS) analytical techniques.

I aspire to develop new analytical in-situ methods in order to enhance our capacity to understand old geological objects and therefore to highlight the big picture of the early solar system formation as well as Earth and planetary evolution.

When I’m not working, I love travelling around the world to discover new places, cultures and art styles.

Introducing our full Earth Composition & Evolution team

The core AGN team is supported by the extended Earth Composition and Evolution (ECE) team at Macquarie University, the University of Melbourne, Curtin University and the University of Melbourne, including:

At Macquarie University:

At the University of Melbourne:

At Curtin University: 

At the University of Western Australia:

And, finally, in our Heat Flow and National Argon Project pilot projects:



 
 

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