GFZ German research centre for geo sciences

Personalia | Juliane Dannberg wins Prize for Science Communication

Juliane Dannberg, former GFZ-PhD student, was awarded with the “KlarText – Prize for Science Communication”.

06.10.2017: Yesterday, Juliane Dannberg, formerly GFZ-section Geodynamical modelling, was awarded with the “KlarText – Prize for Science Communication” in Heidelberg. She has convinced the jury with an article about rock movement in Earth´s interior, a text that should even make non-scientists interested about what is happening in scientific research. Along with Juliane Dannberg six young scientists were honored. They can look forward to 5,000 Euro in prize money.

The Klaus Tschira Foundation will be granting the prize for the 15th time. Until last year it was known as “Klaus Tschira Prize for Comprehensible Science – KlarText!“. Also new, in the the coming years researchers in geosciences can submit their texts, which will be included in the existing categories. Juliane Dannberger´s application was in physics. She did her PhD in 2016 at the GFZ-section Geodynamical Modelling. Currently, she works on the modelling of processes in the Earth’s mantle as a postdoctoral fellow at Colorado State Univesity in Fort Collins.

In her award-winning text, Juliane Dannberg deals with rock movements in the Earth’ interior: There, cold rock sinks, hot rock rises, like in a lava lamp, only much slower. When hot rock approaches the earth’s surface, it begins to melt and the resulting magma triggers volcanic eruptions. Juliane Dannberg developed a new computer model that takes the chemical composition of the rock and the movement of solid rock, such as melted magma, into account. She came to the conclusion that, through the rise of hot rock, enough magma and gas can result in triggering a violent volcanic eruption and mass extinction, as in the case of the dinosaurs.

All the winners’ texts are published in a science magazine that will accompany the weekly newspaper “Die Zeit” on 5 October. (rn)

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