Momentum project
What's it about?
Earth shows how a planet’s internal geodynamics can strongly influence its outer layers —the atmosphere and oceans— affecting climate, habitability, and even the origin of life. This connection depends on how volatile elements (like COHNS, especially oxygen) move between the Earth’s deep interior and surface.
While Earth’s initial volatile inventory was set early in its formation, recent studies show that the current state of the atmosphere and hydrosphere results from a delicate balance between the release of volatiles and their return via subduction zones. These exchanges also affect how the Earth’s interior behaves mechanically.
Understanding this feedback is a major scientific challenge, as it involves complex, evolving physical and chemical processes over different timescales and depths. Although geodynamic and thermodynamic modeling tools have improved, they still struggle to fully capture the impact of dehydration and melting on volatile transfer.
How we do it?
With this project we aim to develop strategies to integrate:
Aqueous fluid thermodynamics and geodynamic models of subduction zones
For this, we use Gibbs free energy minimization (GFEM) algorithms. These algorithms utilize an apparent Gibbs free energy as a descriptor of the energetic behavior (i.e., stability) of a phase, which is a function of pressure (P) and temperature (T): \[\begin{aligned} \Delta_a G^{\mathrm{P,T}} &= \Delta_f G^{\mathrm{P,T}} + RT \ln(a) \\ \text{where:} \quad \Delta_f G^{\mathrm{P,T}} &= \Delta_f H^{\mathrm{P_0,T_0}} - T S^{\mathrm{P_0,T_0}} + \int_{T_0}^{T} Cp \, dT - T \int_{T_0}^{T} \, \frac{Cp}{T} dT + \int_{P_0}^{P} V \, dP \\ \text{where:} \ R &\text{ — universal gas constant} \\ a &\text{ — activity of a component in the phase} \\ \Delta_f G^{\mathrm{P,T}} &\text{ — Gibbs free energy of formation at } P \text{ and } T \\ \Delta_f H^{\mathrm{P_0,T_0}} &\text{ — enthalpy of formation from elements at } P_0 = 1\,\text{bar},\, T_0 = 298.15\,\text{K} \\ S^{\mathrm{P_0,T_0}} &\text{ — third-law entropy at reference conditions} \\ C_p &\text{ — heat capacity at constant pressure} \\ V &\text{ — molar volume of the phase} \end{aligned}\]
For the numerical modeling of geodynamic processes, we will utilize high-precision and efficient finite element modeling methods. Our goal is to explore the coupling of thermo-mechanical models with systems in which geochemical composition evolves through deep chemical interactions.
Training process
The project is built on three main and complementary components to ensure intensive training in numerical modeling of geodynamic processes, computational thermodynamics, and machine learning. This training will be acquired through independent work at host institute - Instituto Andaluz de Ciencias de la Tierra (IACT-CSIC, Spain), as well as research stays at Géosciences Montpellier (Université de Montpellier, France) and the completion of research projects.
