Geodynamicists have long grappled with the complexities of Earth’s mantle dynamics—modeling Venus’ interior adds an extra layer of challenge without the benefit of plate tectonics! This week in News & Views, Madeleine Kerr, a PhD candidate from the University of California, San Diego, explores how numerical modeling can shed light on mantle dynamics and the evolution of Earth’s eni ...[Read More]
How Hot our Moon Can Get: Mapping Radioactive Elements and Thermal State of the Lunar Interior
Geochemists and geophysicists, even with their favorite tools, have often scratched their heads while probing Earth’s deep interior—one can only imagine the challenges while applying those techniques to the Moon! This week in News & Views, Arkadeep Roy, a PhD candidate from the University of Arizona demonstrates how the intersection of experimental petrology, geochemistry, and geophysic ...[Read More]
Two phase or not two phase
In this week’s blog Shi Joyce Sim from Georgia Institute of Technology shares the underlying science behind two-phase flow dynamics. A talk at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in March got me thinking. Basically, the presenter described how boundary layers grow over time, a phenomenon that cannot be captured using one dimensional models and necessitates modeling in higher dimensi ...[Read More]
Regional viscosity variations in Earth’s mantle
For understanding the dynamics and evolution of the Earth’s mantle, knowledge of mantle’s viscosity structure is very important. In this week’s blog, Kenneth Gourley from University of Arizona discusses the variation of viscosity structure in Earth’s mantle in regional scale. In order to understand the dynamics and evolution of the Earth’s mantle, geodynamicists model mantle fl ...[Read More]