The Earth's mantle is almost entirely solid, but on geological timescales it convects vigorously, the well-known surface expression of this being plate tectonics. At depths up to ~100 km beneath plate-tectonic boundaries (mid-ocean ridges and subduction zones), and beneath ocean islands such as Hawaii, the mantle melts, and that melt rises to the surface to feed volcanism and form new crust. Such magmatism plays a key role in the chemical evolution and dynamics of our planet. Although the basic thermodynamics of melt generation in these settings is well understood, how the melt is transported to the surface is not, despite several decades of work on the problem. Furthermore, recent observational evidence suggests that mantle melting is not restricted to the near surface (top 100 km): it may occur within the mantle transition zone (410-660 km depth) and above the core-mantle boundary (2900 km). For these deeper instances of melting, an understanding of the dynamical and thermochemical characteristics is currently lacking.
Understanding the formation and migration of melt in the mantle presents a formidable scientific and mathematical challenge. One key challenge is in bridging diverse length scales - melt lies along grain boundaries at micron scales, may focus into channels at metre scales, and migrates over 100 km. Sophisticated mathematical techniques, such as homogenisation theory, are needed to map an understanding of physics at the smallest scales to plate-tectonic scales. Seismology offers a way to image melt in the mantle, but the development of new tools in inverse theory are required to extract that information. Models of melt transport are eventually cast as a series of coupled non-linear partial differential equations, which require advanced numerical techniques to solve. This programme will bring together a broad spectrum of mathematicians and solid Earth scientists to tackle these and other fundamental challenges of melt in the mantle.
Click here to download the programme's final scientific report
15 February 2016 to 19 February 2016
11 April 2016 to 15 April 2016
6 June 2016 to 10 June 2016
Thursday 3rd March 2016 | |||
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14:30 to 15:30 |
Jed Brown University of Colorado; Argonne National Laboratory |
Room 2 | |
Thursday 10th March 2016 | |||
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14:15 to 15:30 |
Takehiro Koyaguchi University of Tokyo |
Room 2 | |
Thursday 17th March 2016 | |||
---|---|---|---|
14:15 to 15:30 |
David Rees Jones University of Oxford |
Room 2 | |
15:30 to 16:30 |
Meng Tian Yale University; University of Oxford |
Room 2 | |
Monday 21st March 2016 | |||
---|---|---|---|
16:00 to 17:00 |
Jan Nordbotten Universitetet i Bergen; Princeton University |
Room 2 |
Thursday 31st March 2016 | |||
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14:15 to 15:30 |
Urmi Dutta None / Other |
Room 2 | |
Thursday 7th April 2016 | |||
---|---|---|---|
14:15 to 15:30 |
Kundan Kumar Universitetet i Bergen |
Room 2 | |
Friday 8th April 2016 | |||
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16:00 to 17:00 |
Maarten de Hoop Rice University |
Room 2 | |
Monday 18th April 2016 | |||
---|---|---|---|
16:00 to 17:00 |
Peter Kelemen Columbia University; Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution |
Room 2 | |
Thursday 21st April 2016 | |||
---|---|---|---|
14:15 to 15:30 |
Alex Song University College London |
Room 2 | |
Thursday 28th April 2016 | |||
---|---|---|---|
14:15 to 15:30 |
Mikel Diez University of Bristol |
Room 2 | |
Thursday 5th May 2016 | |||
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14:15 to 15:30 |
Paula Antoshechkina CALTECH (California Institute of Technology) |
Room 2 | |
Thursday 12th May 2016 | |||
---|---|---|---|
14:15 to 15:30 |
Jacob Jordan University of Texas at Austin |
Room 2 | |
Monday 16th May 2016 | |||
---|---|---|---|
16:00 to 17:00 |
Andrew Fowler University of Limerick; University of Oxford |
Room 2 | |
Thursday 19th May 2016 | |||
---|---|---|---|
14:15 to 15:30 |
Timo Heister |
Room 2 | |
Thursday 26th May 2016 | |||
---|---|---|---|
14:15 to 15:30 |
Ryan Grove None / Other |
Room 1 | |
Thursday 16th June 2016 | |||
---|---|---|---|
14:15 to 15:30 |
Laurent Montesi University of Maryland, College Park |
Room 2 | |
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