Research

What are the primary processes controlling magma transport from source (melt generation) to eruption, and what are the associated timescales? How do these change in different tectonic environments? How does the presence of magma mushes affect the mantle-to-surface melt transport process (magma recharge, melt mixing)? How do lava flows, especially in flood basalts, flow over long distances?  

How do we detect submarine eruptions, and test theoretical models of eruption dynamics? How do their heat and nutrient emissions affect the ocean-atmosphere system and the biosphere - spatio-temporal scale of influence? Do submarine eruptions affect ocean-atmosphere system differently compared to the subaerial eruptions, and what is their influence on global ocean circulation ?

How do we understand eruptive tempo in the geologic past using observational datasets (e.g., paleomag, paleoclimate proxies)? How do volcanic emissions other than CO2 (e.g., volcanic ash, water vapor, SO2/SO4 aerosols, halogens, hydrothermal nutrient flux) affect the climate over multiple eruption timescales? What is the role of Earth system feedbacks in enhancing/reducing the effects of these perturbations? How can we use data science approaches (e.g., Causal Analysis) to infer inter-relationships between Earth system components using paleo-proxy datasets ?

What is the role of tidal processes in the evolution of planetary bodies in our solar system and for exoplanets? What is the interior structure and potential habitability of icy ocean worlds? How can we use geophysical/fluid dynamical constraints on ocean dynamics to understand the transit time between the seafloor and the ice shell and hence interpret surface or geyser geochemical observations? 

How can we understand planetesimal formation and giant impacts using astrophysical datasets, and how can observations help constrain theoretical models? How sensitive are key planetary properties (e.g., global magnetic field, style of mantle convection) to the initial state of the planet? How does core-mantle interaction (particularly light element exchange) shape the planetary evolution, e.g., magnetic field, hydration state and viscosity of the mantle, and surface water content? Developing a joint data-model analysis spanning a range of datasets to uniquely/consistently constrain the thermo-chemical evolution of the Earth ? 

How can we develop generalized rheological models, which are thermodynamically consistent, for various Earth materials ? How do we upscale models for rock rheology and fluid-rock reactions (with kinetics) from a micro-scale (sub-grain/few-grain scale with crystal plastic defects) to a reservoir scale? How can we constrain the behavior of internal state variables (e.g., damage, damage spatial distribution) within a Representative Volume element using seismo-acoustic datasets (e.g., active acoustics/ambient noise, micro-EQs) - potential for unsupervised/semi-supervised ML on waveforms?