Michael C. Jollands

GMPV Geochemistry, Mineralogy, Petrology & Volcanology

The 2021 Division Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award is awarded to Michael C. Jollands in recognition of his groundbreaking work on ionic diffusion in minerals, with wide application in determining the timescales of geological processes.

It is no exaggeration to say that Michael C. Jollands has, in a very short time, moved right to the front of the pack in his work on diffusion in minerals. He has developed an enviable set of skills, including a facility with high-temperature and high-pressure laboratory determination of diffusivities, detailed petrological work on natural materials using a range of advanced technologies, and the ability to construct meaningful numerical models to describe his observations. His work encompasses diffusion in a wide range of common rock-forming minerals, enabling him to make advances in the determination of timescales of wide applicability.

His experimental work on quartz has resolved the difficulties in relating the cooling timescales inferred from Ti-diffusion to those determined using radioisotopes, with direct application to decoding the thermal history of quartz-rich magmas, especially the pre-eruptive history of major explosive silicic eruptions.

Jollands’ work on diffusion in olivine is particularly noteworthy. His careful experimental work has provided us with constraints on the mechanisms and rates of diffusion of elements such as Cr, Ti, Mg, and Be. He has also recently pinpointed the complex mechanisms by which hydrogen is incorporated into and diffuses within olivine, with consequences for our understanding of how water can change the way olivine behaves in the mantle and leading to advances in our understanding of mantle rheology and electrical conductivity.

Jollands’ exemplary work has provided the community with a wide range of powerful tools to constrain the timescales of geological processes, from mantle convection and melting and magma migration and cooling to metamorphic reactions and orogenesis. He is a very worthy recipient of the 2021 Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award for the Geochemistry, Mineralogy, Petrology and Volcanology Division.