Closing the gap between timescales in the laboratory and in the mantle
LASCO project
Large Atomistic Simulations of Climb in Oxide - LASCO
The goal of the LASCO project is to provide a new understanding of climb processes responsible for flow in the Earth’s mantle. We choose to investigate the elementary mechanism of climb creep processes in magnesium oxide MgO, the second most abundant phase of the lower mantle.
Based on the computation of the atomic mechanism of dislocation climb, a major achievement of the project will be to deliver for the first time quantitative estimates of creep rates in MgO and to provide a new vision of the challenging question of the rheology of Earth mantle.
PI of the LASCO project: Philippe Carrez
Publications
J. Zhai, P. Hirel, P. Carrez, Atomic-scale properties of jogs along 1/2〈110〉{110} edge dislocations in MgO, Scripta Materialia 181, 66-69 (2020), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scriptamat.2020.02.013 (see our news)
Funding
This study is supported by the French government through the Programme Investissement d’Avenir (I-SITE ULNE / ANR- 16-IDEX-0004 ULNE) managed by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche, under the project name LASCO
