IMA session - DE42: Planetary Cores. Please note the abstract deadline is March 13, 2010. See session description at http://www.ima2010.hu/?my_view=nice&p=sp3de

The IMA2010 Conference (Budapest, Hungary; August 21-27, 2010), being the quadrennial World Conference of the International Mineralogical Association (IMA, affiliated to IUGS), the most traditional prestigious international scientific body in mineral sciences, covers the broadest sense mineral sciences and their applications. The 82 scientific sessions will attract at least 1500 delegates from more than 70 countries covering all continents. We hope you will be able to join us to present your exciting science at the conference. More information is available at http://www.ima2010.hu/

Convenors: Gerd STEINLE-NEUMANN, Yingwei FEI, Eiji OHTANI

DE42: Planetary Cores
The Earth’s core is one of the frontiers in earth science. Metallic cores play a central role in the chemical and thermal evolution of the Earth and the other planets, as their segregation is an important source for energy input in young planets and only their presences provide the opportunity for magnetic field generation. The different accretion and segregation histories of the terrestrial planets have resulted in diverse cores that we only begin to understand in recent years in terms of chemical composition, equations of state, and mineralogy of both the liquid and solid phases of Fe-alloys. Advances both in experimental and computational studies in geochemistry and mineral sciences of iron and Fe-alloys over the past decade were able to provide first insights into the variability of core structures for the terrestrial planets. In addition to contributions from the mineral sciences and geochemistry we encourage contributions from the wider community, including geodynamics, seismology, and planetary science that will lay out open questions in core structures of the planets.