The year 2018 comes to a close and now there's finally some extra time (not really) to summarize some recent achievements and milestones...
1) A new PhD project!
The year got off to a great start as Riikka Fred got funding from DONASCI to study the monzodioritic rocks and evolution of the anorthosite parental magmas in Ahvenisto. This was great in many respects, not least due to the fact that we finally got to collaborate with Jussi Heinonen and his PALIN project for this one. Riikka has been working hard all year and the labors have also born some nice fruit...
2) Journal of Petrology Paper
This was a long running project that went over a lot of hindrances but finally saw the light of day in early 2018. Technically the paper was published in the last JPET issue of 2017 but the editorial handling ended only in March. Finally something complete to show for he SA project...
3) Teacher of the year award
The students elected me as the teacher of the year 2017. It was great to get acknowledged for all the hard work put into the first year of teaching. Looking back at it, I would do many things differently... but wouldn't change a day...
4) New teaching duties
As the Department lost invaluable P. Heikkilä to the Geological Survey last spring I stepped up to take the extra teaching load and ditched most of my old stuff in return. Preparing the materials and teaching basic crystallography and mineralogy has taken most of the past year but has been really rewarding. Research duties have had to take a second row seat because of this though...
5) Mineral photography
Teaching the basic mineral course has given a nice excuse to photograph plenty of mineral samples for lecture notes and there might be some additions to this site as well in the near future... am planning to add a page for the best shots but need to think more about the layout possibilities still... stay tuned...
6) Two new MSc projects
I was able to launch two new MSc resarch projects, one to go even deeper into the mineral chemistry of Ahvenisto complex and to assist Riikka in her project and another to finally take a closer look at the Kangasala orbicular rocks. Both projects are still in their infancy but promise to get more wind under their wings at the beginning of next year... exciting times...
7) Riikka's first paper!!!
Riikka's first research paper was accepted for publication (today) and with that the monzodiorite project takes a major leap forward... more to come next year... Look out for the first edition of the Bulletin of the Geological Society of Finland next year...
That's about it... will add more if something pops up... maybe more frequent updates from now-on... :D
