---

The German Research Foundation, the German equivalent of the National Science Foundation, has awarded Barbara Nash a Mercator Professorship for 2009.  This prestigious award provides support for international senior scientists to participate as visiting faculty at German universities and to work on collaborative research projects at the host institution and to contribute to  research-related educational  activities including the training of graduate students.  Barbara is spending this Spring term as Mercator Professor at the Institute for Mineralogy at Leibniz University in Hannover, where she is conducting high-pressure and high-temperature melting experiments on volcanic rocks produced by the Yellowstone hotspot. The work is being done in collaboration with Francois Holtz and Renat Almeev at the Institute for Mineralogy.  The major objectives of the experimental program are to determine the volatile contents of magmas that produce supereruptions and to establish the depth in the crust from which these enormous eruptions emanate.