Ordinary Science

Last week Norwegian Research was characterized as ordinary (“middelmådig”) in a new Swedish report to the Research Council; it was especially pointed out that Norwegian scientists publish too few papers in esteemed journals such as Nature, PNAS and Science.

Only one year into its existence, CEED already broke this rule — as of today it reports one paper in Nature, one in PNAS and one in Science. We published our first Nature paper in June 2013 (Stability of active mantle upwelling revealed by net characteristics of plate tectonics), one paper will appear in PNAS next week (Plate tectonic controls on atmospheric CO2 levels since the Triassic), and in this weeks issue of Science (March 6^th) we can read a paper by Stephanie Werner (The Source Crater of Martian Shergottite Meteorites).

Meteorites from Mars have been known for some time but Stephanie and her collaborators have for the first time been able to identify the source crater (Mojave) for shergottites, the largest group of Martian meteorites. The source region was impacted about 3 million years ago by a medium-size body and ejected rock fragments ended their space journey at the Earth’s surface a few thousand years ago.

Trond Helge Torsvik

Director of CEED 2013 - 2016