Jon Blundy facts for kids

Jonathan David Blundy, born on August 7, 1961, is a leading scientist who studies Earth's rocks. He is a professor at the University of Oxford and also at the University of Bristol. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, which is a very high honor for scientists.

Learning About Earth

Jon Blundy went to some great schools to learn about Earth. He earned his first degree from University College, Oxford in 1983. Later, he received his PhD from Trinity Hall, Cambridge in 1989. He also spent time studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1985 as a Kennedy Scholar.

He attended several schools when he was younger. These included St Paul's School, Brazil, Giggleswick School, and Leeds Grammar School. Other famous rock scientists, like Keith Cox and Lawrence Wager, also went to Leeds Grammar School.

Studying Volcanoes and Magma

Professor Blundy is well-known for helping us understand how magma forms deep inside the Earth. Magma is molten rock found in the Earth's crust (the outer layer) and mantle (the layer beneath the crust). He also studies what happens inside volcanoes before they erupt.

How Magma Moves and Changes

For his PhD, Blundy studied granite rocks in the Adamello-Presanella region of the Italian Alps. He worked with Professor Robert Stephen John Sparks at the University of Cambridge.

In the 1990s, Blundy worked with another famous geologist, Bernard Wood. They made a theory popular that explains how tiny amounts of other elements, called trace elements, get into the crystals of igneous rocks. Igneous rocks are formed from cooled magma or lava.

Experiments on Molten Rocks

This theory was based on experiments where they melted rocks at very high temperatures and pressures. These experiments helped scientists predict how elements would spread between crystals and molten rock. This information is now widely used to understand how magma changes as it moves through the Earth.

What Happens Before an Eruption

Later, Blundy worked with Katharine Cashman at the University of Oregon. They studied Mount St. Helens volcano in the USA. They showed that when gases escape from magma, it can cause the magma to form crystals. This process is called degassing.

What's interesting is that this crystallization can happen even without the magma getting cooler. In fact, when magma crystallizes, it can release heat, making the magma even hotter. This is an important discovery for understanding how volcanoes behave right before a major eruption.

Awards and Special Honors

Professor Blundy has received many important awards for his work. These include the F.W. Clarke Medal in 1997 and the Murchison Fund in 1998. He also received the Bigsby Medal from the Geological Society of London in 2005.

In 1998, he was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Oregon. In 2007, he was a guest professor at Nagoya University in Japan. In 2008, he was chosen to be a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). This is a very high honor for scientists in the United Kingdom.

Why He Was Honored

His nomination for the Royal Society said that Jon Blundy has made huge contributions to understanding how magma forms and moves inside the Earth. It noted that his work covers many areas, from studying rocks in the field to doing experiments in the lab. His research helps us understand how magma changes as it rises beneath volcanoes, giving us new clues about what happens just before big eruptions.

In 2011, Blundy also received the Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award.