Geochemical Treasures and Petrogenetic Processes

Dr. John S. Armstrong-Altrin obtained his Ph.D in Sedimentology (2000) from University of Madras (Chennai, India). He is currently a senior researcher at the Institute of Marine Sciences and Limnology of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City. His research interests focus on geochemistry, sediment provenance, environmental pollution, detrital zircon U-Pb ages, and tectonics. He has conducted a good number of research projects on coastal and deep-sea sediments of the Gulf of Mexico. Dr. Kailasa Pandarinath obtained his Ph.D. in Marine Geology from the Mangalore University, India. He worked at the Physical Research Laboratory (1995-1998) and Mangalore University (1998-2003) as a Project Scientist and Research Scientist, respectively. Subsequently, he joined the Energy Research Center (currently, the Renewable Energy Institute) of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Mexico in June 2003 as Associate Researcher (2003-2008). Presently, he isSenior Researcher (2008 onwards) and is a member of the National System of Researchers (SNI) with level II. During his 25 years of research experience, he has worked on several lines of research focused on various issues of natural systems. His research interests have been in: (i) studies on geothermal systems (water-rock interaction, mineralogy and geochemistry of hydrothermal alteration, geothermometry, and development of computer programs for geothermal problems); (ii) studies on rock-magnetic properties (as geothermal exploration tools); (iii) tectonomagmatic discrimination diagrams; and (iv) studies on mineralogy, sedimentology and geochemistry of different geological materials and environments (coastal processes, estuarine and oceanic transport dynamics, marine pollution, sea level changes, clay and geochemical composition of sediments, and paleoclimate and paleo-environments).Dr. Sanjeet Kumar Verma is Associate Professor at the Department of Applied Geosciences, Instituto Potosino de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica, San Luis Potosí, México. He received his PhD in Igneous Petrology and Geochemistry from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico in 2012. His research focuses on geochemistry, petrogenesis of igneous rocks, including isotope geochemistry and geochronology in order to address the following themes: 1) define the evolution of magmatic rocks of igneous province, 2) to decipher the composition of crustal vs. mantle source, i.e., related to degree of melting and mode of magma generation and emplacement, 3) understand plate tectonic processes on the basis of geochemistry and discrimination diagrams in area of igneous petrology. He is a fellow of the Royal Society, London, UK.

• 1.  Mineralogy, geochemistry and geochronology of igneous and sedimentary rocks.- 2. Geochemistry and tectonic discrimination.- 3. Siliciclastic rocks and their provenance.- 4. Application of geochemistry in geothermics.- 5. Geosoftware in geochemical studies.