********************************************************************** From: Gerald Ernst <plumeman2000@xxxxxxxxxxx> ********************************************************************** RE: Call for papers – "Active Volcanism and Continental Rifting in Africa" JAES Special Issue --------------------------------------------------------------- >From Cape Verde to Mt Cameroon and from there to the Afar triangle and the two main branches of the East African Rift System, one comes across some of the most exciting petrological, geochemical, volcanological and tectonic features of our dynamic planet. Yet it is also centered around the African continent that studies of active volcanism or rifting have least focused thus far. Overall, there has been remarkably little documentation of African volcanoes. This is generally true for any aspect of work concerning them, from basic detailed mapping or sampling to hazard or risk evaluation or modelling, or from analysis of hazard experience or risk perception to any mitigation work such as monitoring or communication or management effort. Continental rifting is also best observed at the present-time in Africa, yet fundamental data to document the special plate tectonic and related petrochemical processes in this part of the world is only starting to be collected systematically. There have been only a limited number of studies focusing on the relationships between petrochemistry, magma emplacement and its kinematics and eruptions at the surface. Now with the biggest rifting event on record taking place in Ethiopia, there is a unique opportunity that local scientists and their international colleagues have seized to make substantial advances in documenting such phenomena. No doubt this can help advance our understanding of intraplate volcanism elsewhere, either rift-related or not, either mantle plume-related or not. Our young science of volcanology has seen spectacular advances in the last 4 decades, largely fuelled by systematic field measurements and data collection programmes, ever more integrated measurements inspired and helped by technological advances, numerical and other forms of modelling, eg. inspired by analogue lab experimentation. An observation one can make, however, is that systematic field observations and measurements have concentrated on a minority of the world volcanoes, those located in rich industrialized countries and also in those countries now fast catching up with them. This has left out most volcanoes of the world largely unstudied and unmonitored. African volcanoes and rifts remain the least studied or monitored of the volcanic regions. At the end of 2007, about 75 scientists gathered at the AVCOR International Workshop in Luxembourg and contributed presentations and posters illustrating just how exciting and fertile it can be to develop research focused on volcanism or continental rifting in Africa. Contributors have been preparing manuscripts for a special issue of the Journal of African Earth Sciences (Latest Impact Factor: 1.089). This mail is to invite you to join them. Anyone is welcome to submit one or several manuscripts in PDF format via the JAES website (http://ees.elsevier.com/aes/) by 28 February 2009. To ensure that all manuscripts are correctly identified for inclusion into the special issue, please make sure to select "SPECIAL ISSUE: AVCOR" when you reach the "Article type" step in the submission procedure. Information about JAES, instructions to authors and help for authors can all be found on the above-mentioned site. Once submitted electronically, your ms will be assigned to one of the guest editors and dealt with in the usual way for any Elsevier journal. Please do get in touch (email: plumeman2000@xxxxxxxxxxx) and let us know if you plan to submit a manuscript (or to alert us that you have just done so), to discuss its suitability for the special issue or to negotiate a short extension on the proposed deadline. The intention is to wrap up the peer-review process and get to proof-stage by the summer. The special issue is a rare chance to focus on the "forgotten continent" and the aim is to illustrate how exciting it can be to research continental rifting or volcanology in Africa, thereby increasing visibility for such work and encouraging our community to increase its involvement in Africa volcanology and rifting research. Beyond advancing our science, active volcanism and rifting research in Africa is crucial as a basis to document the diverse related resources that may benefit local people, such as geothermal heat, raw industrial materials, ores hosted in a volcanic context, or locally-driven volcano geotourism. For this to develop meaningfully, more systematic multidisciplinary research and publication is needed. It is in this dual context of contributing to our science and to relevant applications from it for local people overwhelmingly suffering from a lack of basic needs (ie. absolute poverty), that this special JAES AVCOR issue is inscribed. We hope that like the attendees of the AVCOR conference that you will make every possible effort to support this endeavour. On behalf of the AVCOR board of editors, Gerald ERNST (Managing Guest Editor, AVCOR Special Issue) ------------------- Dr. Gerald GJ. ERNST, Mercator & Ortelius Research Centre for Eruption Dynamics, Geological Institute, University of Ghent, Krijgslaan 281/S8, 9000 Ghent, Belgium Email: plumeman2000@xxxxxxxxxxx List of Invited Guest Editors for the JAES AVCOR Special Issue: -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Gerald ERNST, Managing Editor, University of Ghent, Belgium Dr. Nicolas D'OREYE, Co-editor, Natural History Museum, Luxembourg Dr. François KERVYN, Co-editor, Royal Museum for Central Africa, Belgium Dr. Gezahegn YIRGU, Co-editor, University of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Dr. François LUCAYA, Co-editor, Goma Volcano Observatory, DR Congo Dr. Tim WRIGHT, Co-editor, University of Leeds, UK Dr. Cindy EBINGER, Co-editor, University of Rochester, USA Dr. Eric CALAIS, Co-editor, Purdue University, USA Dr. Nicola PAGLIUCA, Co-editor, INGV, Roma, Italy Dr. Dario TEDESCO, Co-editor, University of Naples, Italy ============================================================== To unsubscribe from the volcano list, send the message: signoff volcano to: listserv@xxxxxxx, or write to: volcano-request@xxxxxxxx To contribute to the volcano list, send your message to: volcano@xxxxxxxx Please do not send attachments. ==============================================================
