Jon Blundy facts for kids

Jonathan David Blundy is a well-known scientist who studies rocks and the Earth. He is a professor at the University of Oxford and also teaches at the University of Bristol. He was born on August 7, 1961.

Studying the Earth: Jon Blundy's Education

Jon Blundy went to some famous universities to learn about the Earth. He studied at the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge. He also spent time as a Kennedy Scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the USA. His studies helped him become an expert in petrology, which is the study of rocks.

Jon Blundy's Work: Understanding Volcanoes and Magma

Professor Blundy is famous for helping us understand how magma forms deep inside the Earth. Magma is the hot, melted rock found under the Earth's surface. He also studies what happens inside volcanoes before they erupt.

How Magma Forms and Moves

His early research looked at granite rocks in the Italian Alps. He worked with another scientist, Bernard Wood, to explain how tiny parts of melted rock (trace elements) fit into crystals as magma cools. They used experiments with very hot and high-pressure rocks to figure this out. This helps scientists predict how magma behaves.

Volcanoes and Degassing

Later, Professor Blundy worked with Katharine Cashman on the Mount St. Helens volcano in the USA. They discovered that when gases escape from magma (a process called degassing), it can make the magma crystallize. This can happen even without the magma getting cooler. Sometimes, the magma can even get hotter because of the energy released during crystallization! This research helps us understand how volcanoes prepare to erupt.

Awards and Special Recognitions

Professor Blundy has received many important awards for his work. These awards show how much his research has helped us understand the Earth.

• In 1997, he received the F.W. Clarke Medal.
• In 1998, he was given the Murchison Fund award.
• In 2005, he won the Bigsby Medal from the Geological Society of London.
• He was also a Fulbright Scholar in 1998.
• In 2008, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). This is a very high honor for scientists. His nomination said that he made "fundamental contributions to understanding the generation and movement of magma within the earth." It also mentioned his work on how magma moves under volcanoes before big eruptions.
• In 2011, he received the Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award.

These awards show that Professor Blundy is a leading expert in understanding the powerful forces beneath our planet.