The work of GeoMaX postdoc Alexander on the high-pressure elasticity of single-crystal bridgmanite has been published online in Nature today (link). Bridgmanite is the most abundant mineral in our planet and knowledge of its elastic behavior is needed to interpret seismological observations and link them to the structure, composition and dynamics of Earth’s interior. Our paper reports on the first experimental determination of the elastic tensor and sound wave velocities of (Al,Fe)-bearing bridgmanite at pressures of Earth’s lower mantle. In the work published today, we compare models based on our experimental results to seismic observations and thereby constrain the average composition of the shallow lower mantle. We find that a mantle of pyrolitic composition is consistent with seismic observations if bridgmanite contains ferric iron (Fe3+). We further find that depth-dependent changes of the ferric iron content may occur in bridgmanite. This novel finding opens the possibility for related variations in physical and chemical properties of the lower mantle with depth that need to be determined in future studies.

Hauke was invited by the University of Oxford to present the recent GeoMaX achievements. The presentation which was aimed at a wide ranging audience of geoscienctists was part of a special seminar held on February, 6th in the Earth Science building in Oxford.

Julia attended the DESY user meeting in Hamburg and presented parts of her PhD work in a talk entitled „High-pressure, high-temperature rXRD experiments at the ECB beamline of PETRA III“.

Hauke was invited to present the group’s work in a seminar talk organised by the seismology group at LMU München. The presentation on „Experimental Exploration of Earth’s Mantle“ was gien for a wide audience of students and researchers from geophysics and geodynamics and was accompanied by a short meeting aimed at defining topics of possible future collaborations.

We currently have two open PhD positions – details here.

PhD student Johannes Buchen has been awared an AGU travel grant to attend the society’s Fall Meeting in San Francisco where he will present his work on „Internally consistent single-crystal elasticity of (Mg0.89Fe0.11)2SiO4
wadsleyite at high pressures and high temperatures“. Congratulations!

Hauke was invited to present the group’s work in a keynote talk at the European Mineralogical Conference that took place last week in Rimini, Italy. The talk about „Insights into the nature of Earth’s mantle from elasticity and rheology measurements at high-pressure/high-temperature“ was scheduled in the session „Advances in computational and experimental mineralogy: A journey from the surface to the deep Earth and beyond“. Johannes presented his PhD work on „Internally consistent single-crystal elasticity of iron-bearing wadsleyite at high pressures and high temperatures“ in the same session.

Kirsten Schulze has been awarded the „Best Student Poster Price“ for her presentation at the 54th European High Pressure Research Group (EHPRG) International Meeting that was held in Bayreuth this week. The presented work was entitlted „The effect of iron content and hydration state on the elastic moduli of single-crystal ringwoodite at high pressure“ Congratulations!!

The workshop was organized by Prof. Daniel Frost (BGI) and Prof. Michihiko Nakamura and others (Tohoku Unversity) and was held at the Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan from July 3-6. It was the kick-off workshop for the DFG-funded International Research Training Group (IRTG) „Deep Earth Volatile Cycles“ that involves members of BGI (and the GeoMaX group) and Tohoku University. Johannes and Kirsten also joined the meeting and presented their work on the effects of OH-incorporation on the single-crystal elasticity of transition zone minerals.