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Lecturer:
Prof. Albert Griera, Associate Professor at the Departament de Geologia of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
Abstract
Rock microstructure plays a fundamental role in controlling the mechanical, physical or fluid transfer properties of the Earth. Nevertheless, its interpretation is a challenging problem because the evolution of microstructures is the result of the interaction of multiple physical and chemical processes. Additionally, the role of deformation in modifying structures has important features at multiple scales, particularly spatial and temporal scales. The long time scales associated with some geologic processes (ductile deformation, digenesis, metamorphism, etc) provide specific other challenges to predict microstructure evolution: firstly the long timescales permit all available processes to be activated during rock evolution, and secondly, they limit direct experiments and force to interpolation of results, with an increase of a riskier extrapolation. Attempts to simulate the evolution of microstructures are currently a major focus for material science and geosciences research.
In this talk I will give my perspective on the currently available techniques for numerical simulation of rock microstructures, with a particular emphasis on the “Elle” modelling platform. “Elle” is a collaborative project with aim to develop an open-source able to simulate the evolution of rock microstructures during deformation and metamorphism. I will focus my talk in two main examples, (1) the simulation of olivine during plastic deformation and its influence on the mechanical and geophysical properties and (2) the evolution of ice during dynamic recrystallization and its potential application to interpret the microstructures observed in ice cores.
Profile of the Lecturer
Albert Griera is associate professor at the Departament de Geologia of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He received his PhD in Geology from UAB in 2005. He moved to LMTG (Toulouse, France) in 2007 as a CNRS postdoctoral fellow. During this period, he integrated into the collaborative research network “ELLE” for the development of a numerical platform to simulate deformation and metamorphic processes of rocks. In 2010 he was appointed as Associate Professor at the Departament de Geologia of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. His research interest is broadly on Tectonics and Structural Geology and their application to rock mechanics using multidisciplinary approaches that combine field study with experimental or numerical modeling. On the topic of microstructure modeling, his current research is focused on the evolution of polycrystalline aggregates at large strain, and their application to interpret microstructures observed in polar ice cores and mantle rocks.
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