Work in the Geological Porous Media Group
Our group is very diverse, current students are enrolled in PhD programs in Geological Sciences (this includes Geophysics), Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering, and Computational Science Engineering and Mathematics and they have undergraduate degrees in the Geosciences, Engineering, and Physics. All have a quantitative background and share an interest in mathematical modeling and numerical simulation of complex geosystems and the dynamics of flow in porous media. The new Graduate Portfolio Program in Computational Geosciences (starting Fall 2013) forms the backbone of the graduate education in our group. This new program is a first-of-a-kind interdisciplinary graduate program designed to educate tomorrow’s leaders in computational and quantitative geosciences. Dr. Hesse teaches a sequence of graduate courses focussed on porous media that tightly integrate mathematical modeling and numerical simulation and provide the background required for advanced graduate work.
Graduate students are generally expected identify an important problem in the Earth and environmental sciences, develop appropriate and most likely new mathematical models. The course work will provide students with the skills to analyze their model and to develop appropriate numerical solutions. The group has a strong esprit de corps and graduate students share skills and help each other with problem shooting.
Postdoctoral Opportunities
The Jackson School of Geosciences provides competitive Postdoctoral Fellowships for outstanding young scientists in all areas of the Geosciences. Applicants with independent funding can contact Marc Hesse directly.
Current PhD Opportunities
The group currently has three PhD openings in the topics listed below and exceptional candidates with interests in computational geosciences and flow in porous media are encouraged to contact Marc Hesse for more information. Applications for admission in the Fall 2013 are now closed, but we are still looking for a suitable candidate for the following project. Until the next admission cycle employment as a research associate is possible.
Magma dynamics of monogenetic vents
I am looking for a PhD student interested in modeling the compositional variations observed in the lavas of monogenetic vents as part of an interdisciplinary NSF-funded project in collaboration with Profs. Lassiter and Barnes. Monogenetic vents are short-lived magmatic systems that are thought to arise from a single pulse of melt formed from a chemical heterogeneity in the Earth’s mantle. The importance of chemical heterogeneities for the melting processes in planetary interiors has only recently been recognized and the monogenetic vents provide unique constraints on the role of mantle heterogeneities in mantle melting.
Lassiter and Barnes will provide a detailed geochemical characterization of the temporal variations in monogenetic vent lavas and our group will develop numerical models for the geochemical evolution of an isolated pulse of melt rising through the mantle. Comparison between model results and observations will then provide constraints on the depth of melting and the size of the heterogeneity that gave rise to it.
Interested applicants can learn more about our previous work in this area from the following papers:
- Liang, Schiemenz, Hesse & Parmentier (2011) Waves, channels, and the preservation of chemical heterogeneities during melt migration in the mantle, Geophys. Res. Lett., 38, L20308, doi:10.1029/2011GL049034 [link]
- Hesse, Schiemenz, Liang & Parmentier (2011) Compaction-dissolution waves in viscously deforming porous media, Geophys. J. Int., 187(3), 1057–1075, DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-246X.2011.05177.x [link]
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Posted – 05/10/2013