Project description
Experimenting to explain dynamics in deep Earth
Explaining the mechanisms in deep Earth is crucial to better understand our environment and its changes. However, as depth increases, obtaining direct knowledge of the physical and chemical properties and dynamics becomes impossible. To overcome these challenges, the EU-funded TRIREME project will explore the transport of energy through minerals and melts in the high-pressure and temperature conditions of Earth’s interior in accurately modelled, robust, pioneering experiments under extreme conditions. To this end, it will examine heat transport, electrical conduction and fluid flow in Earth’s core and lower mantle while unveiling unknown consequences of deep transport for Earth’s evolution and its presently hidden dynamics.
Objective
"Project TRIREME will explore the transport of energy through minerals and melts at the high pressure and temperature conditions of the Earth’s interior, and the consequences for Earth’s evolution and its present dynamics, from the core to the biosphere. Deep transport determines the age and growth behaviour of the inner core, the thermal history of the mantle, and the longevity of Earth’s life- and civilization-sustaining magnetic field. This project will determine the transport behaviour in deep Earth materials via cutting edge experiments at extreme conditions, constraining heat transport, electrical conduction, and fluid flow in Earth’s core and lower mantle. Accurate numerical modelling of the complex experiments will robustly establish underlying transport properties and their uncertainties. Applying these methods in geophysically-relevant minerals and melts, including iron alloys and mantle minerals, at the true conditions of Earth’s interior, our results will constrain the dynamics of deep Earth systems, to better understand and predict their evolution and effect on the surface environment. We will examine in particular the current and historic conditions of Earth’s core and dynamo-driven magnetic field in the context of geodynamic and geomagnetic constraints on deep dynamics. Project TRIREME (Latin: ""three rows of oars"") will thus comprise three lines of investigation: 1) the laboratory study of transport in Earth's interior using novel and cutting-edge experimental techniques at high pressure and temperature; 2) the numerical modelling of experiments in unprecedented detail to accurately characterise observed transport phenomena at extremes; and 3) consideration of the geodynamic phenomena emerging from the underlying transport behaviour. In breaking through longstanding challenges in the measurement of transport at extreme conditions, this work will set course to make a historic impact in the study of Earth systems’ dynamics."
Fields of science
Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
ERC-COG - Consolidator GrantHost institution
EH8 9YL Edinburgh
United Kingdom