Abstract
This special issue in honour of the late Olivier Jaoul brings together contributions from experimental and theoretical mineralogy, the area of most of Olivier's own work, focused for the most part on the Earth's mantle. The volume is divided into three sections; diffusion, deformation and seismic properties. New technological developments have often had a strong impact on research in this area, as again shown by Olivier's constant search to improve the resolution of the short diffusion profiles typical of major cations in mantle silicates. In the section on diffusion the impact of improved computer performance for modelling diffusion and point defect configurations on one hand, and high pressure experimental techniques on the other hand, highlight the continued development in this area. The section on deformation deals with wide range of subjects, including the deformation of olivine and quartz and the relation between deformation and diffusion, both subjects close to Olivier's personal interests. This illustrates the new possibilities to undertake deformation experiments at mantle pressures and temperatures, as well as improvement in high-fidelity viscoelastic measurements at high temperature. In the last section on seismic properties we discover theoretical developments on predicting properties near the Earth's surface and a new experimental application, which allows the determination of sound velocity at very high pressures with implications for the Earth's inner core.