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Matthew R. Simmons Memorial Fund established to honor the late Ocean Energy Institute founder

The Matthew R. Simmons Memorial Fund has been created in the University of Maine’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center with a $250,000 donation to honor the memory of the late founder and chair of the Ocean Energy Institute.

The fund will be used to host the Matthew R. Simmons International Conference on Deepwater Offshore Wind Technology, part of a biennial conference disseminating research and development in the areas of offshore wind energy and advanced materials.

The Simmons family issued the following statement: “The Simmons family is deeply grateful for all of those who have supported and continue to support Matt’s life’s work. The creation of the Matthew R. Simmons Memorial Fund will allow his legacy and energy to continue far into the future, bringing together the brightest minds to ensure offshore wind technology becomes a driving force in alternative energy throughout Maine, our country and the world. We are so proud that this is being established at the University of Maine, a university in a state Matt loved so much.”

Simmons, who passed away in 2010, was an oil and gas investment banker who later became a renewable energy advocate. His highly acclaimed 2005 book, Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, has served as an anchor point for journalists at the Washington Post, New York Times and other major publications. In founding the Ocean Energy Institute, he envisioned a clean, renewable, ocean energy-based future as a necessary and viable alternative to fossil fuels.

“Matt was a wonderful friend, a brilliant businessman and a great leader with whom we shared a common vision,” says Habib Dagher, director of the Advanced Structures and Composites Center. “We will continue to forge ahead with Matt’s vision to create ocean energy opportunities for the world. We are particularly thankful to the Simmons family for entrusting us to carry on Matt’s legacy.”

More information about this July 2013 conference will be available on the UMaine Composites Center’s website.

The Advanced Structures and Composites Center is a state-of-the-art one-stop-shop for integrated composite materials and structural component development. Located at the University of Maine, it offers in-house capabilities for developing a composite product or structure from the conceptual stage through research, manufacturing of prototypes, comprehensive testing and evaluation, code approval and commercialization.

Contact: Elizabeth Viselli, 207.907.6962

Scientists in Poland name new minerals for UMaine geologist

Russian geologists at the University of Silesia in Poland have discovered two minerals new to science and have named them “edgrewite” and “hydroxledgrewite” in honor of University of Maine geologist and research professor Edward Grew.

The new minerals were discovered by mineralogists Evgeny Galuskin and Irina Galuskin in the Chegem caldera in the Northern Caucasus, near Mount Elbrus in the Kabardino-Balkaria Republic in Russia. A caldera is a crater-like structure produced by very large explosive volcanic ash eruptions, like those found Yellowstone and Crater Lake national parks.

Grew began working with the Galuskins as associate editor of the journal American Mineralogist, when he helped them prepare papers for publication, and in person at the International Mineralogical Association meeting in Budapest in 2010. The Galuskins were familiar with Grew’s reputation for working successfully with Russian scientists throughout his career.

The honor of having a mineral named for him “is a lifelong dream come true,” says Grew, whose research focuses on rare minerals containing boron and beryllium, and the role of the two elements in the changes that rocks undergo at high temperatures and pressures in the Earth’s crust. “I have always valued my international collaborations in science, and so I was especially honored that colleagues in Europe proposed my name for the new minerals they discovered.”

A UMaine research faculty member for 28 years, Grew has been involved in the discovery and characterization of 13 new minerals, including six from Antarctica. He has been on nine expeditions to Antarctica with researchers from the former Soviet Union, Australia, Japan and the United States, in addition to research projects in Australia, India, Germany, Japan, Tajikistan and Siberia. His first expedition to the Antarctic was in 1972–74, when he wintered at Molodezhnaya Station. He has published extensively on the composition and evolution of minerals, and has served in leadership capacities for national and international professional organizations and mineralogical publications.

Identifying undiscovered minerals involves detailed microscopic analysis. Edgrewite and hydroxledgrewite were found as tiny crystals smaller than the period at the end of a sentence in a newspaper, according to Grew.

“Recognizing a new mineral involves a measure of good luck and familiarity with known minerals,” he says. “Several new minerals I have discovered simply looked different under the optical microscope. Chemical tests confirmed my hunch that the minerals were new. Sometimes a new mineral does not stand out optically under the microscope, but (its) distinctive chemical composition suggests it is new. Once a mineral is suspected to be new, it is studied in detail so its physical, chemical and crystallographic properties are fully characterized and then it must undergo a complex process of approval by an international commission.”

The Galuskins and research colleagues from four European countries discuss the discovery of the new minerals edgrewite and hydroxledgrewite in a peer-reviewed scientific report in the November–December issue of the journal American Mineralogist.

Contact: George Manlove, 207.581.3756