Birkbeck PhD student has paper on Apollo 12 basalts accepted by Meteoritics and Planetary Science
Louise Alexander explains the trials and sense of achievement that accompany publishing your first paper.
Louise Alexander, a fourth year PhD student in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Birkbeck, has had her first paper [Searching for non-local lithologies in the Apollo 12 regolith: A geochemical and petrological study of basaltic coarse fines from the Apollo lunar soil sample 12023,155 ] accepted for publication in the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science. The research covered in the paper is part of Louise's PhD thesis.
The paper covers the analysis of small 1-2 mm grains from a soil sample collected by the Apollo 12 mission, using their bulk and mineral chemistries to compare them to other known Apollo 12 samples. This investigation makes it possible to find out if any of them might have been transported from elsewhere on the lunar surface and also to develop new ways of categorizing lunar lava flows from very small samples.
Image shows backscattered electron (BSE) image of lunar sample 12023,155_6A, an olivine basalt fragment with a porphyritic texture. Silicate phases appear dark, while metal-rich phases such as ilmenite appear bright, due to differences in the efficiency of electron backscattering in different phases.
Louise worked in close collaboration with her co-authors, Dr Joshua Snape at the Open University and Dr Katherine Joy at the University of Manchester, as well as her PhD supervisors, Professor Ian Crawford and Professor Hilary Downes, at Birkbeck. She commented: 'It feels amazing to have my first paper on Apollo 12 basalts published. Although it's the first paper I've written as a PhD student, I'm lucky to be part of a team of experienced scientists who provided me with help and advice along the way. While it's great to have a paper published, it has been really hard work, and it took several rounds of corrections to get it ready for publication. The whole experience could be demoralizing at times, but thanks to the support and encouragement of my supervisors and co-authors I managed to keep going. I'd advise anyone struggling with their first paper never to give up, because it's the most wonderful feeling in the world when it's finally accepted and you have that sense of achievement.'
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