High-pressure researches in geoscience

Most of the papers collected in the present volume are the outgrowth of a specially founded Priority Program initiated and organized by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft as a national contribution of the Federal Republic of Germany to the International Geodynamics Project. Contrary to earlier Priority Programs that had emphasized the phase equilibria aspect of high-pressure research the prime goal of this program was to study geologically relevant materials while being held at elevated pressures and temperatures.