Information for participants – Phase equilibrium modelling workshop

Dates and times

Table of Contents

This online workshop will take place over five days, Monday 10^th to Friday 14^th May, with 3.5-hours per day at the following times:

07:00-10:30 Pacific Standard Time
08:00-11:30 Mountain Standard Time
09:00-12:30 Central Standard Time
10:00-13:30 Eastern Standard Time
15:00-18:30 British Summer Time
16:00-19:30 Central European Time
19:30-23:00 India Standard Time
22:00-01:30 China Standard Time/Australian Western Standard Time
23:00-02:30 Japan Standard Time
00:00-03:30 Australian Eastern Standard Time

Times listed for talks in the rest of this document are in Mountain Standard Time. The first four days will comprise two approximately 1.5-hour sessions, of which one third to one half of each session is dedicated to discussion, followed by 30 minutes of open discussion.

Prior knowledge

The workshop assumes a reasonable level of familiarity with phase equilibrium modelling, i.e., it is not an introduction to phase equilibrium modelling. Participants should have a reasonable understanding of:

Why we conduct phase equilibrium modelling
Thermodynamic parameters: Gibbs free energy; enthalpy; entropy; heat capacity; volume (and the relation of these parameters to pressure and temperature); activity; chemical potential
The difference between classical thermobarometry (e.g., garnet-biotite thermometry) and phase diagram-based modelling

Concerning the software packages under consideration at the workshop – Thermocalc, Perple_X and Theriak-Domino – the workshop will not be a complete “how-to” treatment of any of them, although some program-specific procedural aspects will be discussed. Instead, discussion will focus mainly on the differences, strengths and weaknesses of them. It would be beneficial to have used one or more of the three phase equilibrium software packages, but it is not obligatory.

Each has a web site with tutorials:

If it is desired to have a refresher of thermodynamics in advance of the workshop, we recommend any of the following references:

Anderson, G.M. (1996) Thermodynamics of natural systems. New York: Wiley. (small soft-back).
Anderson, G.M. (2005) Thermodynamics of natural systems. Cambridge University Press. (https://www.academia.edu/8435624/Anderson_2005_Thermodynamics_of_Natural_Systems?auto=download)
Powell, R. (1978) Equilibrium thermodynamics in petrology: An introduction. Harper & Row: London. (https://hpxeosandthermocalc.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/powell_1978_15mb.pdf)
Spear, F.S. (1993) Metamorphic Phase Equilibria and Pressure-Temperature-Time Paths. Mineralogical Society of America Monograph.
Wood, B.J. & Fraser, D.G., (1977) Elementary thermodynamics for geologists. Oxford University Press: Oxford.

Workshop material

We will endeavour (but cannot guarantee) to post pdf documents of the presentations in advance of when they are delivered. This may be only one day ahead. These documents will be posted on the workshop website.

Several presentations have unpublished information in them. Where indicated, this material cannot be reproduced or used without the permission of the authors.

Zoom etiquette

The workshop is being run as a Zoom webinar. The chat function will be disabled.

Questions can be submitted using the “Q&A” function, and a moderator will pose the questions to the presenters. We can’t guarantee that all questions can be posed in the time allotted for discussion, but we will try. All questions will nevertheless be logged.
The presentations and discussion will be recorded for later posting, subject to appropriate editing by the organizers/presenters (more details below).

Availability of presentations following the workshop

After the workshop is over, we plan to post recordings of the webinar presentations and discussion on the workshop website, as well as on the websites of the supporting societies. Details have yet to be finalised. Initially, access to the presentations will be limited to workshop registrants (including those who were unable to attend the live workshop) via the workshop website.