Solid Earth Geoscience Focus

Focus Leader: Scott Baldridge sbaldridge@lanl.gov

This focus supports a breadth of basic research concerning planetary surfaces and interiors, including numerical, experimental, and field studies of the structure, properties, processes, and dynamics of terrestrial and giant planets. It is strongly recommended that proposals exploit unique LANL resources (e.g., LANL high-performance computing resources; the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE); geochemical analyses facilities resident in EES and C divisions; and/or sensor technology capabilities resident in C, EES, ISR, and N divisions).

We are particularly interested in innovative research projects in areas of current, strong international scientific interest such as the following:

• New techniques in passive (imaging) or active (e.g., lidar, radar) remote sensing and digital data analysis for the geosciences
• Elastic strain measured by GPS or InSAR for applications in natural hazards and hydrology
• Strain localization in geomaterials
• Earthquake seismology and seismotectonics, including rupture processes, rheology and friction of fault zones, and earthquake clustering
• Dynamics and elasticity of Earth materials
• Transient and steady-state behavior in geologic and hydrologic processes, including multi-phase fluid flow in porous and fractured media
• Exploiting low-temperature thermal evolution of geomaterials or effects of ionizing radiation on geomaterials
• Dynamic interactions between climate, tectonics, and surface processes, including mechanics of erosion, biogeochemistry of permafrost thaw, and ecological feedbacks to climate change on all time and space scales.
• Ice-field fracturing and the role ice fracturing plays in ice-field melt

The following areas reflect continuing IGPP interest

• Planetary interiors
• Planetary tectonics
• Earth's interior--composition and state, and rheology of crust, lithosphere, and mantle
• Geomagnetism and electromagnetics
• Dynamics of lithosphere and mantle
• Tomography
• Heat generation and transport