astronomy

Jon Blundy

Jon Blundy is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Jon Blundy rather than just read about it. In short: Jonathan David Blundy FRS (born 7 August 1961) is Royal Society Research Professor at the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford and honorary professor at the University of Bristol. Education He is a graduate of University College, Oxford (B.A., 1983) and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, (PhD, 1989) and a former Kennedy Scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1985).

Key takeaways

Jon Blundy belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Jon Blundy to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Jon Blundy from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Jonathan David Blundy FRS (born 7 August 1961) is Royal Society Research Professor at the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford and honorary professor at the University of Bristol.

Education He is a graduate of University College, Oxford (B.A., 1983) and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, (PhD, 1989) and a former Kennedy Scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1985). He was educated at St Paul's School, Brazil, Giggleswick School and Leeds Grammar School, where petrologists Keith Cox and Lawrence Wager also studied.

Career Blundy is most noted for advancing the understanding of how magmas are generated in the Earth's crust and mantle and of the processes that occur in volcanoes before they erupt. He undertook his PhD research at the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Professor Robert Stephen John Sparks on the granites of Adamello-Presanella in the Italian Alps. In a series of papers with the notable Bernard Wood in the 1990s, Blundy popularized a theory of elastic strain originally developed by Onuma to describe the uptake of trace elements into the crystal lattices of igneous minerals. The theory was based on high temperature and pressure experiments on molten rocks, and is now widely used to predict crystal-melt partition coefficients for use in modelling magmatic processes. Blundy subsequently collaborated with Katharine Cashman at the University of Oregon on Mount St. Helens volcano in the Cascade Range of northwestern USA. Blundy and Cashman demonstrated the importance of degassing in driving the crystallisation of volatile-bearing magmas, a process that can occur without any attendant cooling. In fact, because of the release of latent heat of fusion, magmas that crystallise by decompression can actually get hotter in the process.

Awards and honours Blundy is a recipient of the F.W. Clarke Medal of the Geochemical Society (1997), and Murchison Fund (1998) and the Bigsby Medal of the Geological Society of London (2005). He was a Fulbright Scholar at University of Oregon in 1998, guest professor at Nagoya University in 2007 and elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2008. His nomination reads: Jon Blundy has made fundamental contributions to understanding the generation and movement of magma within the earth. The breadth of his work is impressive, ranging from field studies of the emplacement mechanisms of granites and volcanic rocks, through experimental petrology and thermodynamics applied to igneous systems, to study of the oxidation state of the mantle. His most recent programme has combined a wide range of field, analytical, and laboratory skills to quantifying the pressure-temperature paths followed by magmas as they ascend beneath volcanoes, and has cast important new light on the evolution of magmas immediately before major eruptions.Blundy was also awarded the Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award in 2011.

References

External links Profile on the website of the School of Earth Sciences Fellows Directory Royal Society Fellows Directory record

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Jon Blundy

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Jon Blundy claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Jon Blundy before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Jon Blundy ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Jon Blundy

In research: Jon Blundy appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Jon Blundy in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Jon Blundy is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1961 births, Alumni of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, Alumni of University College, Oxford, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Jon Blundy outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Jon Blundy in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Jon Blundy means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Jon Blundy out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Jon Blundy in simple terms?

Jonathan David Blundy FRS (born 7 August 1961) is Royal Society Research Professor at the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford and honorary professor at the University of Bristol. Education He is a graduate of University College, Oxford (B.A., 1983) and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, (PhD…

Why does Jon Blundy matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Jon Blundy?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Jon Blundy.