Modeling plastic deformation under extreme conditions

The Earth
is a hot body which evacuates internal heat through large scale convection of
its mantle (this is the solid rocky layer which extends down to 2900 km below
our feet). Modeling plastic flow in the mantle is thus a major challenge in
geophysics at the interface with materials science.

Indeed,
conditions are rather extreme down there: temperature up to 3000 K, pressure up
to 135 GPa and very slow strain rates ca. 10-16 s-1.

Following
recent progress in this area (Cordier et al. (2012) Nature 481, 177 doi:10.1038/nature10687 )
the European Research Council has awarded us with an Advanced Grant to develop
a new multiscale modeling approach of plastic deformation of high-pressure
minerals. The project named RheoMan is funded (Total ERC-funding: 2 165 723 €)
for five years, starting may 2012.

Five PhD
projects and three two-years postdocs will be funded during the course of the
project. It will be also possible to apply for support on short-term projects
related to RheoMan and associated technical developments.

More
information can be found on the RheoMan website: www.rheoman.eu