There is limited evidence of iron in ancient Egypt in early times as most of this iron appears to have fallen from the sky as meteorites, so we have little understanding of the role iron played in ancient Egyptian civilization. What the ancient Egyptians thought of it is not understood. However they were fashioning meteorite iron fragments into jewelry from as early as pre-historic times around 5500 years ago. These were discovered in the graves of 2 important people and some later examples are known of iron objects from Royal tombs including that of king Tutankhamen, which indicates the importance of iron. If they did know it originated from the sky which was the place of the gods they would have valued it greatly. Our project will explore how iron was used across Egypt at different times by examining museum collections to see the different types of objects Egyptians used iron to produce. Evidence of what they thought iron to be will be derived from many sources including museum artefacts and ancient texts. The earliest references to iron in Egyptian texts are frequently as iron bones of gods, we are yet to fully understand what these mean. We know that dark dense heavy mammal fossils which have a very similar visual appearance to weathered iron were sometimes placed within burial shafts and tombs some even being wrapped in their own linen shrouds. As the ancient Egyptians frequently considered animals to represent gods these type of fossils may be the inspiration for the early ideas of iron bones, this in turn could have had a significant influence on the early use of iron and the ancient Egyptian attitude to it. Our study will scientifically explore the origins of these fossils, identifying which mammals are present considering their cultural role and association with representations of gods in ancient Egypt.

Although life successfully moderates surface conditions on Earth, some events in Earth History have threatened the viability of most life forms. Arguably the most profound and long-lasting challenge in the last 2 billion years was glaciation on a near-global scale (pan-glaciation), with the best documented event being around 650 to 630 million years ago ('Marinoan' glaciation). One overaching model (Snowball Earth hypothesis) proposes that snow and ice was so widespread that the Earth become much more reflective of solar radiation and cooled to a mean temperature of around -50 degrees Celsius. Glaciation was eventually terminated by the build-up of carbon dioxide emitted from volcanoes, that was not used up by the weathering of rocks, since rocks were buried beneath the extensive snow and ice cover. Although the extremity of the cold and the way in which glaciation terminated have been challenged, there is widespread agreement that glaciation reached tropical latitudes at sea level. New data will significantly constrain future modelling efforts. We have recently made a breakthrough in generating a new suite of chemical data on exceptionally well-preserved carbonate precipitates in saline glacial lakes in the Wilsonbreen Formation rocks of Svalbard, thought to be the same age as glacial deposits found on all the continents and referred to as 'Marinoan'. Firstly we find that in terms of oxygen isotopes, these carbonates are the most evaporative yet discovered and so must have formed in a hyperarid environment. Secondly we use new discoveries about the meaning of the abundances of the isotope 17-O in relation to our measurements of sulphur isotope ratios in order to show that the atmosphere was profoundly different from that which existed during younger glaciations: the simplest explanation for it is that the atmosphere was very high in carbon dioxide. This implies that weathering was indeed inhibited by an extensive ice cover. This study and various previous studies have demonstrated the outstanding importance of the rock exposures in these remote locations to understanding this extraordinary event in Earth history - indeed they are the only place where we can find a chemical sedimentary record that allows us to understand conditions on the Earth surface and in the atmosphere. We propose to make new studies over two summer seasons in this remote field area to enable us to fully describe and archive the field relationships and collect suites of samples that will enable us to understand more clearly the preserved evidence. We will use magnetic properties to reconstruct the palaeolatitude of the glacial deposits and will try to determine the age directly by radiometric methods to see if it is consistent with the 'Marinoan'. Our favoured modern analogue for the Wilsonbreen formation saline glacial lakes are found in the intensely cold McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica. We will test this idea using physical properties of the sediment whilst the chemical properties will be used to constrain how much water is cycled through the atmosphere, how oxidizing the atmosphere was and whether carbon dioxide had already built up in the atmosphere by the time the first glacial lakes formed. Our work will also extend to the apparently warm- and cold-climate marine deposits that are found above and below two glacial units in the Svalbard in order to understand the broader context. Our work includes a number of new approaches as well as applying tried-and-tested modern methods of dating and magnetic analysis in a new area. We expect to emerge with a clear and vivid picture of the nature of the land surface during one of the most extreme cold events in the history of the planet. We will also find out whether this location could be the best place in the world to formally place a 'golden spike' at the base of the Cryogenian geological period. The information will be disseminated and archived in novel ways.

One of the biggest challenges with the study of extra-terrestrial samples is that much of the geological context is missing, whereas on Earth we can have access to field information about location, orientation, surrounding rocks, etc before even collecting a sample and subsequent laboratory analyses. On-going space missions (OSIRIS-Rex and Hayabusa2) to primitive C-type asteroids (likely parent bodies for carbonaceous chondrite meteorites) are scheduled to return grams to kgs of material in the early 2020s. They will collect samples from a specific asteroid, but the samples they collect will be grabbed from the well-mixed surface regolith, which by its very nature contains little geological context. The carbonaceous chondrites are believed to originate from C-type asteroids, some of which are clearly lithified regoliths and breccias (e.g. Fig 1). As such they offer a unique opportunity to understand what can be determined about the parent asteroid from a mixed regolith from detailed mineralogical, chemical and isotopic investigation. Primitive asteroids near Earth are usually rubble piles, and therefore the regolith is expected to be comprised of all the main lithologies present in the parent body, including the most primitive materials in the inter-clast regions as they are too friable to survive as large clasts. Therefore, part of the project will be to investigate the nature of the inter-clast materials for exotic lithologies and components

This H2020 Twinning project ‘Achievement of Excellence in Electron Processes for Future Technologies’ (ELEvaTE) is aimed at advancing the excellence of the Electron and Plasma Physics Laboratory (EPPL) in the Faculty of Mathematics Physics and Informatics, Comenius University in Bratislava such that it becomes a centre of international excellence and an exemplar for other Slovakian HEI while furthering the Strategy for Smart Specialization of the Slovak Republic. EPPL has an established scientific reputation and has exploited its expertise in the development of novel future technologies. The EPPL is integrated in some international programmes and has hosted conferences but lacks experience in leading international projects, industry cooperation and disseminating results. The goal of the ELEvaTE is to provide the EPPL opportunity to learn from partners to achieve ambition of creating a centre of excellence. ELEvaTE will twin EPPL with the Molecular Physics Group at the Open University (OU) in United Kingdom and Nano-Bio-Group at the Institute for Ion Physics and Applied Physics at the University of Innsbruck (UIBK). The OU is exceptional in results dissemination and the UIBK combines research with enterprise (e.g. ‘spin out’ company Ionicon, world's leading producer of PTRMS), both are exemplars of ‘widening participation and gender sensitive research’ and are strong in preparing IPR. ELEvaTE will be implemented through work packages with clear and measurable deliverables. The UIBK will lead the academic-industry cooperation and technology transfer while the OU will focus on means of results dissemination. The EPPL will adopt new codes of practice on technology transfer, academic-industry partnerships and revise its management structures to implement and sustain excellent science. The partnership will be exploited for submitting joint research project proposals especially within H2020. The EPPL will transfer its knowledge and scientific excellence to other HEIs.