05/09/2025: Afzal graduates with PhD in Computational Science Engineering and Mathematics

Afzal returned to UT to participate in the graduation ceremony. Afzal started his PhD in the fall of 2019, working on Modeling Subsurface Flow of Water in Earth and Planetary Sciences. Afzal focused on infiltration processes and cyropheric systems with phase change. His work lead to a new understanding of the  formation of ice layers in firn, an important process that stores melt water and prevents it from reaching the ocean. He also developed a model for the evolution of impact melts on icy ocean worlds, such as Europa and Titan. His work shows that these melts are even more likely to drain that previously thought due to porous flow and dilation of the underlying ice shell.

05/09/2025: Eric graduates with PhD in Earth and Planetary Sciences

Eric started his PhD in the fall of 2019, working on large-scale groundwater hydrology of ancient Mars. The picture shows Eric with two of his advisors Sean Gulick and Marc Hesse, his third advisor was Tim Goudge. Eric work shows that common precipitation estimates for Mars would likely raise the groundwater table to the surface over wide areas, something that is not consistent with the geological record. This work therefore suggests that either precipitation was significantly less intense, that the surface hydrology was largely decoupled from groundwater or that deep sinks such as the Hellas basin effectively drained the groundwater.

04/25/2025: Afzal and Eric’s paper on infiltration on Mars is published

Geophysical Research Letters has published Afzal and Eric’s paper Infiltration Dynamics on Early Mars: Geomorphic, Climatic, and Water Storage Implications. The paper together with European collaborators Rickbir Singh Bahia, Eleni Bohacek and Vilmos Steinmann is to investigate the dynamics of infiltration on early Mars. They estimate that deep crustal recharge requires decades to centuries and the aquifer response lags the climate optimum. They also argue that Mars vadoze zone can hold significant amounts of water which is not available to evaporation and hence climate dynamics. For more information see the EPS press release.

01/07-01/09/2025: Workshop on Subsurface Modeling Beyond the Field Scale

Marc went to Norway to participate in a workshop on subsurface modeling beyond the field scale organized by Inga Berre and Jan Nordbotten. The aim of the workshop was to think about regional scale impacts of the rapidly expanding and diversified use of subsurface resources. Transitioning from field scale simulation to regional scale simulation alters the balance between different processes as well as the representation of geological structure due to the increase in space and time-scales.

12/09-13/2024: GFMG & friends are heading to 2024 AGU Fall meeting

Monday 12/09: Afzal [C11C-0469], Eric [P12A-02], Tuesday 12/10: Mahi [P23B-3085], Afzal [P23B-3092], Wednesday 12/11: Sean [U32B-07], Thursday 12/12: Soraya [P41F-2955], Friday 12/13: Eric [EP53A-1458]

12/03/2024: Jialong’s paper published in Astronomy & Astrophysics

Astronomy & Astrophysics has published Jialong’s paper Surface Dynamics of Small Fast Rotating Asteroids: Analysis of Possible Regolith on Asteroid 2016 HO3. The paper with collaborators Bo Wu, Hongliang Li, Yi Liu and Xing Wang (Center for Deep Space Exploration) investigates wether near-Earth asteroid 2016 HO3 that will be visited by Chinese Tianwen-2 mission has any regolith. The paper found that the poles have a higher chance of hosting regolith, and the regolith may also rest on the walls of craters that face toward the rotation axis, making them potential sample collection sites.

12/04-06/2024: Marc is presenting at Solvay Workshop on Mixing: at the crossroads of foundations and practices

The Solvay Conferences (“Conseils Solvay”) are probably the most famous conferences in physics and chemistry. They are a key part of the history and development of science. This Solvay Workshop on “Mixing: at the crossroads of foundations and practices” is intended to bring together specialists in the field of Mixing in the broad sense. This event will be the opportunity to appreciate recent advances, both experimental and conceptual on the topic, and discuss the future of the discipline. Marc will talk about “Mixing and transport across ice shells in ocean worlds”.

09/06/2024: Jialong’s paper published in Journal of Geophysical Research – Planets

JGR-Planets has published Jialong’s paper Deterministic Model for Asteroid Thermal Evolution With Fragmentation and Reassembly Into a Gravitational Aggregate. The paper with collaborators Nicholas Dygert (UT Knoxville) and Mike Lucas (Florida Space Institute) presents a model for the thermal effects of asteroid fragmentation. It provides the first estimates for the energy lost during fragmentation and shows the pulverization of the asteroid can cause significant cooling despite short reassembly times.

08/16/2024: Eric gives presentation at TAPS meeting

Eric Hiatt presented his work on Martian groundwater hydrology at the second Texas Area Planetary Science Meeting in San Antonio. He presented results from his recent paper on constraining steady groundwater recharge rates on Mars and new results on transient episodic recharge during warm periods.

08/01/2024: Afzal’s paper published in Geophysical Research Letters

Geophysical Research Letters has published Afzal’s paper A Mechanism for Ice Layer Formation in Glacial Firn. The paper with collaborators Surendra Adhikari (JPL), Cyril Grima (UTIG) and Anja Rutishauser (GEUS) proposes a new mechanism for the formation of ice layers in glacial firn. The refreezing of surface melt localizes at depth within the firn after the melt event when the drying front reached the wetting front and conduction becomes the dominant heat transfer mechanism. Ice layer a ubiquitous feature in glacial firn that affects melt water storage and run-off and the overall contribution of surface melting to sea-level rise. For more information see the press release by the Oden Institute for and the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences.

07/24/2024: Jialong successfully defends his PhD thesis

Jialong Ren successfully defended his PhD thesis on “Numerical Approaches to the Evolution of Asteroids and Planetesimals”, congratulations Jialong. After graduation Jialong will join the Center for Deep Space Exploration and Hong Kong Polytechnic University and participate in Chinese space exploration program.

07/22/2024: Afzal successfully defends his PhD thesis

Mohammad Afzal Shadab successfully defended his PhD thesis on “Modeling Subsurface Flow of Water in Earth and Planetary Sciences”, congratulations Afzal. After graduation Afzal will join Princeton University as a Future Faculty Fellow in the Physical Sciences to work with Reed Maxwell in polar hydrology.

06/14/2024: Afzal’s paper published in Advances in Water Resources

Advances in Water Resources has published Afzal’s paper A hyperbolic–elliptic PDE model and conservative numerical method for gravity-dominated variably-saturated groundwater flow. The paper proposes develops a model for variably saturated flow in the limit of negligible capillary forces. This limit avoids numerical problems that arise if the capillary transition zone in not resolved in simulations at large spatial scales where the water table can be considered a surface.

04/3-20/2024: Marc lectures at Matrix Institute

Marc lectured at the workshop on Instabilities of Flows in Porous Media held by the Matrix Institute at the Creswick Campus of the University of Melbourne. Marc gave three lectures on:

1. Natural carbon dioxide reservoirs and convective dissolution in confined systems
2. Reaction fronts in porous media
3. Fluid flow in ductile rocks

After the workshop Marc visited Monash University and Australian National University.

12/11-15/2023: GFMG is heading for 2023 AGU Fall meeting

Monday 12/11: Soraya [P13D-2819]  Thursday 12/14: Afzal [C43D-1629A, C43D-1632]
Afzal won the Innovation Award for Students in the 2023 AGU Cryosphere Flash Freeze Competition – congratulations!

11/04/2023: Afzal’s and Eric’s paper published in SoftwareX

SoftwareX has published Afzal’s and Eric’s paper
PKgui: A GUI software for Polubarinova-Kochina’s solutions of steady unconfined groundwater flow. The paper is a tribute to a pioneer female hydrogeologist in 1900’s Russia, Dr. Pelageya Polubarinova-Kochina. Polubarinova-Kochina’s solutions have not been implemented in the literature due to mathematical and computational intricacies since published in 1962. Here we made an efficient, accurate and simple to use GUI software to obtain her analytic solutions for steady unconfined groundwater flow across rectangular dam, useful for geotechnical and groundwater communities. The journal has also published our tutorial video for downloading and running the software on Mac & Windows as supplementary data

09/18/2023: Evan successfully defends his PhD thesis

Evan Carnahan successfully defended his PhD thesis on “The Influence Of Ice Dynamics On The Habitability Of Ocean Worlds”, congratulations Evan. After graduation Evan will join Zendar a start-up working on autonomous driving.

09/09/2023: Eric’s paper published in Icarus

Icarus has published Eric’s paper Limited recharge of the southern highlands aquifer on early Mars. The paper with collaborators Afzal Shadab, Sean Gulick and Tim Goudge shows that observations of limited groundwater seepage severely limit the amount of recharge to the southern highlands aquifer. The paper presents both analytical solutions for simplified model problems and numerical solutions incorporating complex shorelines. This incorporation of shorelines is advance over previous models martian groundwater.

06/05/2023: Afzal’s starts NASA JPL Internship

Afzal is back at JPL for a second internship, this time with Steve Vance. Over the summer he will work on the transport of organic materials in the Self impact on Titan. The foundering of impact generated melt chambers has the potential to transport organics form the surface down into the ice and potentially into the internal ocean. where the combination of organics and water may facilitate pre-biotic chemistry.

05/01/2023: Jialong’s starts Internship in Hong Kong

Jialong is working in the Planetary Remote Sensing Lab at Hong Kong Polytechnic University for his internship with Professor Wu, Bo. He will take advantage of his understanding of asteroid evolution from previous thermal work to analyze the surface dynamics of small and fast spin asteroids.

05/09/2023: Afzal’s paper on PINNs published

Advances in Water Resources has published Afzal’s paper Investigating steady unconfined groundwater flow using Physics Informed Neural Networks. the paper in collaboration with fellow graduate students Dingcheng Luo, Eric Hiatt and Yiran Shen investigates the ability of Physics Informed Neural Networks to predict the seepage face in unconfined groundwater flows.

04/20/2023: Eric wins departmental accolades!

Eric won both the GSEC Student Service Award and the Outstanding TA award at this years’ Departmental awards ceremony. The service award recognized his leadership in hosing the 2023 student research symposium and the TA award his work as TA for GEO 401 in the Fall 2022. Congratulations!

03/13-17/2023: GPMG is heading for LPSC 2023

Tuesday 03/14: Eric [#2415], Marc [#1637], Afzal [#1736] Thursday 03/16: Jialong [#1803]

12/12-16/2022: GFMG is heading for 2022 AGU Fall meeting

Tuesday 12/14: Eric [P25C-03] Afzal [H22Q-1057] Molly [NS26A-03] Thursday 12/15: Afzal [H45J-1509] Friday 12/16: Naoma (Marc co-author) [EP55C-0814]

11/21/2022: Evan’s paper published in Geophysical Research Letters

Geophysical Research Letters has published Evan’s paper Surface-to-ocean exchange by the sinking of impact generated melt chambers on Europa. The paper with collaborators Steven Vance and Rónadh Cox studies the post-impact evolution of impact generated melt chambers. The density of the brine and the weakening of the ambient ice shell allow the melt to founder through the ice. The melt reaches the underlying ocean, if the transient cavity of the impact exceeded half of the ice shell thickness. This could deliver surface generated oxidants to the ocean to sustain redox gradients necessary for chemotrophic life. For more information see the UT DGS Press Release and the article in the Daily Texan. The neat illustration on the left is by Grace Cao.

11/21/2022: Jialong’s paper published in Meteoritics & Planetary Science

Meteoritics & Planetary Science has published Jialong’s paper Thermochemical evolution of the acapulcoite–lodranite parent body: Evidence for fragmentation-disrupted partial differentiation. The paper led by collaborator Mike Lukas and Nick Dygert from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville presents new major and trace element data from primitive achondrites that suggest rapid cooling from peak, magmatic temperatures. Jialong developed thermal models suggesting that the studied meteorites originate from ~300 m to ~10 km radius collisional fragments that cooled rapidly over time scales of several to ~20,000 yr, then re-accreted to form a slower cooling, second-generation rubble-pile asteroid

11/14/2022: Afzal’s paper published in Water Resources Research

Water Resources Research has published Afzal’s paper Analysis of Gravity-Driven Infiltration With the Development of a Saturated Region. The paper develops and extended kinematic theory for infiltration that can account for the formation of a fully saturated layer. This is mathematically interesting because the nature of the governing equation switches from hyperbolic (local) in the unsaturated region to elliptic (global) in the saturated region. Physically this theory is interesting because it allows us to understand and describe the formation of transient perched water tables within the soil.

06/02/2022: Molly wins Remote Sensing Fellowship

Molly has won the Dr. Floyd F. Sabins, Jr. Summertime Fellowship in Remote Sensing that will support her research this summer.

05/11/2022: Alex’s paper published in SoftwareX

SoftwareX has published Alex’s paper MPLBM-UT: Multiphase LBM library for permeable media analysis. The paper with Javier Santos and other members of Masha Prodanovic’s group aims to make  running single- and two-phase flow simulations in porous media accessible to everyone. MPLBM-UT is a specialized lattice-Boltzmann library that provides a suite of tools to pre-process computational domains for simulation, to set up custom boundary conditions, to run simulations, to post-process simulation outputs, and to visualize simulation results and data. The MPLBM-UT library can be freely accessed at: https://github.com/ElsevierSoftwareX/SOFTX-D-21-00184

03/05/2022: Marc’s paper published in GRL

Geophysical Research Letters has published Marc’s paper Downward oxidant transport through Europa’s ice shell by density-driven brine percolation. The paper with former graduate student Jake Jordan and collaborators Steve Vance and Apurva Oza at JPL proposes a mechanism of the transport of surface oxidants into the ocean. The delivery of surface oxidants into the ocean is required to generate and maintain the redox gradients required for chemotropic life. The physical mechanism for the oxidant transport through the ice is one of the key outstanding questions in the habitability of Europa’s internal ocean and other icy ocean worlds. The paper shows that oxidants mixed into near surface brines can percolate through the ice and reach the ocean beneath the ice.  For more information see the UT press release, which was featured on the UT front page.

03/04/2022: Jialong’s paper published in Icarus

Icarus has published Jialong’s paper On the cooling rate evolution of asteroid fragments. The paper with collaborators Nic Dygert and Mike Lukas from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville establishes the basic theory for the evolution of the cooling rates recorded by a geothermometer at a particular temperature. The work was motivated by observations of fast high temperature cooling rates in chondrite meteorites (Lukas et al. 2020) that suggest fragmentation and reassembly of the chondrite parent body. This work provides an important corner stone for the development of more complex models that are required to reproduce the complex trends in the data.

03/07-11/2022: GPMG is heading for LPSC 2022

Monday 03/07: Evan/Marc [M155, #2242] Tuesday 03/08: Afzal [T408, #1775] Wednesday 03/09: Jialong [W633, #2266], Eric [W615, #2618] Thursday 03/10: Angela/Marc [R815, #1128]

02/04/2022: Afzal wins 2022 LPI Career Development Award

Afzal has just been awarded the Career Development Award of the Lunar and Planetary Institute. The award is given each year to a handful of graduate students from the US and other countries as well who have submitted a first-authored abstract to the annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. Afzal received the award for his abstract Estimates of Martian mean recharge rates from analytic groundwater models. Alos the see the ODEN Institute press release, which was featured on the UT front page.

12/23/2021: Afzal wins OSPA for 2021 AGU Fall meeting

Outstanding Student Presenters Mini-Award for his oral presentation “Fluid Infiltration in Unsaturated Porous Medium with The Development of a Saturated Region” (H52D-10) in the Environmental Vadose Zone Hydrology session. Congratulations Afzal and thanks to the organizers Bo Gau, Joaquin Jimenez-Martinez and Veronica Morales for recognizing Afzal’s contribution.

12/11-17/2021: GFMG is heading for 2021 AGU Fall meeting

Tuesday 12/14: Marc [P23B-08], Eric [P25G-2228] Wednesday 12/15: Afzal [C35E-0917, H34F-03], Jialong [DI35E-0092], Eric [H35R-1240] Friday 12/17: Afzal [H52D-10], Naoma (Marc co-author) [P54A-08]

12/3/2021: Eric wins UTIG Graduate Fellowship

This prestigious award recognizes Eric’s accomplishments and academic record. Eric will use the fellowship to complete his ambitious experimental campaign to study seepage face dynamics. Eric’s work will provide the first systematic data set to understand this fundamental issue in hydrogeology.

10/24/2021: Marc gives inaugural SIAM-GS webinar

Marc gave a talk on Solutal convection in Porous Media and it is now available on youtube. The talk summarizes the collaboration with Yu Liang, Baole Wen and David DiCarlo on solute driven convection in porous media. Some of the work has already been published in Liang et al (2018) and Wen et al (2018). Hopefully the rest will be out soon.

09/28/2021: Dominik’s paper published in JGR and highlighted in EOS

Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth has published Dominik Kardell’s paper Hydrothermal models constrained by fine-scale seismic velocities confirm hydrothermal cooling of 7–63 Ma South Atlantic crust. The paper was highlighted in EOS, because it present compelling evidence that hydrothermal circulation is a significant cooling factor up to crustal ages of 60 to 65 million year, in excellent agreement with previous estimates and observations. These results should be incorporated in Earth cooling models and may serve as a reference to plan future seafloor drilling expeditions. Dominik was supervised by Gail Christeson, but the modeling part grew out of Marc’s numerical modeling class GEO 325M and former group member Evan Ramos helped with the implementation.

08/06/2021: Part II of Amal’s paper published in WRR

Water Resources Research has published the second part of Amal’s paper Bayesian Poroelastic Aquifer Characterization from InSAR Surface Deformation Data. Part II: Quantifying the Uncertainty. The paper, in collaboration with the Omar Ghattas, Ann Chen and Umberto Villa designs a generalized preconditioned Crank–Nicolson (gpCN) MCMC method that exploits this intrinsic low dimensionality by using a low-rank based Laplace approximation of the posterior as a proposal. This approach allows the quantification of the uncertainty in complex, three-dimnsional, transient, multi-physics problems such as geodetic aquifer characterization.

06/30/2021: Evan awarded TSGC 2021-2022 Fellowship

Evan has been selected as a NASA/Texas Space Grant Consortium Fellow for the 2021-2022 academic year. Texas Space Grant Consortium Fellowships have been established to encourage graduate study in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

05/28/2021: Eric and Evan win CPSH student grant

Eric and Evan have been awarded the Student Research Award in Planetary Habitability by the UT Center for Planetary Systems Habitability (CPSH). Eric will work on the effect of impacts on early Martian groundwater hydrogeology and Evan will work on the effect of impacts on oxidant transport in icy ocean worlds like Europa.

05/18/2021: Baole’s paper published by ADWR

Advances in Water Resources has published Baole’s paper Convective carbon dioxide dissolution in a closed porous medium at high-pressure real-gas conditions.  The paper in collaboration with Kristian Jessen and Theodore Tsotsis at the University of Southern California extends the analysis of the negative feedback during convective CO₂ dissolution in closed systems to reservoir conditions. This has allowed the first measurement of the convective CO₂ dissolution rate in the actual CO₂-water system at reservoir conditions.

03/15/2021: Afzal – Oden feature and SIAM chapter recognition

The Oden institute website featured an article How To Be Productive During a Global Pandemic that interviewed Afzal about his research and activities with the SIAM student chapter. Afzal has is currently president of the SIAM student chapter, which has recently been recommended for a Certificate of Recognition by the Oden faculty.

03/09/2021: Evan and Natalie’s paper accepted in EPSL

Earth and Planetary Science Letter has published their paper New insights into temperature-dependent ice properties and their effect on ice shell convection for icy ocean worlds and the associated data brief A Comprehensive Dataset for the Thermal Conductivity of Ice Ih for Application to Planetary Ice Shells. The paper and data set in collaboration with Jake Jordan presents a comprehensive collection of thermal conductivity data and other ice properties, develops a mathematical formulation for ice convection that allows temperature dependence in all parameters and shows that increased conductivity at low temperatures  acts to suppress convection in Europa’s ice shell.

01/24/2021: Afzal is awarded UTIG “Blue Sky” Fellowship

Afzal’s proposal Modeling firn densification due to melting, percolation & refreezing with Cyril Grima and Anja Rutihauser was selected in the UT Institute for Geophysics (UTIG) Research Innovation Initiative that aims to facilitate co-advised student research projects that span disciplines and Units within the JSG. Afzal is proposing to model how partial melting in the summer modifies the firn density on the Devon ice cap. Understanding firn densification is important to estimate the changes in ice mass from satellite geodesy.

01/12/2020: Jialong’s paper published in GCA

Geochimica et Cosmocimica Acta has published Jialong’s paper Evidence for early fragmentation-reassembly of ordinary chondrite (H, L, and LL) parent bodies from REE-in-two-pyroxene thermometry. The paper is in collaboration with the Mike Lukas and Nick Dygert from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville (UTK). The paper provides geochemical evidence for the rapid cooling  of chondrite parent bodies at high temperatures, suggesting break-up at near peak temperatures. Jialong developed a thermal model for of an asteroid with fragmentation and reassembly that shows that rapid high temperature cooling is compatible with the slow low temperature cooling previously observed. [UT Press Release] [JSG Press Release][Planetary News]

08/10/2020: Amal’s paper published in Water Resources Research

Water Resources Research has published Amal’s paper Bayesian Poroelastic Aquifer Characterization from InSAR Surface Deformation Data. Part I: Maximum A Posteriori Estimate. The paper, in collaboration with the Omar Ghattas and Ann Chen, develops a high‐dimensional scalable Bayesian inversion framework governed by a three‐dimensional quasi‐static linear poroelastic model to characterize lateral permeability variations in groundwater aquifers. This approach will be essential to harness the ever increasing amounts for data from satellite geodesy and bring them to bear on aquifer characterization and monitoring.

08/10/2020: Marc’s paper published in Nature Astronomy

Nature Astronomy has published Marc’s paper Impact-driven mobilization of deep crustal brines on dwarf planet Ceres. The paper in collaboration with the Carol Raymond from JPL and the Dawn Science team argues that the impact forming Occator cater on the Dwarf planet Ceres mobilized deep seated brines that formed the famous ‘bright deposits’. Given the absence of tidal heating the persistence of large brine reservoir just beneath the icy crust to the present day came as a surprise. This paper is one in a series from XM2 phase of the Dawn Mission, see here for the JPL press release, the DGS/JSG press release and a feature in Scientific American.

08/01/2020: New class – GEO 371T Continuum Mechanics

As part of the revision of the undergraduate geophysics curriculum, Marc is offering a new class on Continuum Mechanics for geophysics students in their junior and senior years. The class explores modeling and simulation of fluids and solids in geological and geophysical phenomena, such as mantle convection, glaciology, and climate dynamics. Explains basic principles of continuum mechanics and thermodynamics. Covers the fundamental conservation laws and the common constitutive relations for fluids and solids. Emphasis on three dimensional geometries and real-world examples from all areas of the Earth Sciences.

04/09/2020: Kimmy’s paper published in GRL

Geophysical Research Letters has published Kimmy’s paper on Modeling the Contribution of Poroelastic Deformation to Postseismic Geodetic Signals. The work in collaboration with Tim Dixon and Rocco Malservisi (University of South Florida) investigates how large earthquakes induce regional groundwater gradients that in turn lead to significant postseismic surface deformation.

01/25/2020: Iterative multiscale paper cited 100 times

The paper on the Iterative multi-scale finite volume method, with Hadi Hadjibeygi  has been cited 100 times since 2008. The paper was written during a summer visit to Patrick Jenny’s group at ETHZ and addressed an important problem in the multi-scale finite volume method with anisotropic grids.

12/09-13/2019: GFMG is heading for AGU Fall meeting 2019

Thursday: Amal [NS43A-07] Friday: Baole [H53D-03], Marc [P53D-3482], Marc (co-author) [P54B-06]

06/28/2019: Baole is moving to University of Michigan

Baole Wen, postdoc in GPMG and postdoctoral fellow at the Oden Institute has moved to a new position at the University of Michigan, Ann Habour. At UT Baole work worked on the effects of dispersion and confinement on solutal convection in porous media. On both front Baole made major contributions. In collaboration with Alex Yu (PhD student) and Prof. David DiCarlo (PGE) he showed that dispersion reduces the convective flux by 30-40 %, but that that the linear scaling of the flux with Raleigh-Darcy number is retained. He showed that the anisotropy of the dispersion is the dominant control on the reduction of the convective flux. Together with his collaborators he also showed that the convective pattern is not controlled by the Rayleigh-Darcy number, as previously thought, but by a dispersive Ryleigh number.

03/01/2019: Li’s paper published in Electrophoresis

Electrophoresis has published Li’s paper Dispersion of a charged solute in charged micro- and nanochannel with reversible sorption. The work in collaboration with Moran Wang investigates how the coupling between sorption and electrical double layer gives rise to charge‐dependent transport. Li’s work was chosen as cover image for the March issue of Electrophoresis.

03/06/2019: Masoud’s paper published by AIChE Journal

AIChE Journal has published Masoud’s paper Theory of dissolution and precipitation waves – redux. The work in collaboration with Florian Doster at Heriot-Watt University investigates revisits the classic problem of the reactive transport of two salts that share an anion in an ideal solution. Masoud has developed a comprehensive theoretical framework, based on the theory of hyperbolic conservation laws. The analysis of the system allows identification of seven bifurcations with respect to the composition of the migration reacted zone (intermediate state).

02/08/2019: Marc’s paper published by GRL

Geophysical Research Letters has published Marc’s paper Thermal evolution of impact-induced cryomagma chamber beneath Occator Crater on Ceres. The work in collaboration with Julie Castillo-Rogez at JPL investigates the effect of an insulating crust and the release of latent heat on the cooling of the cryomagma. They show that both effects extend the longevity significantly but to at most 12 Ma. To reach the 18 Ma suggested by model ages based on crater counting would likely require recharge from  deep brine reservoir. However, cater ages have large uncertainties and it is possible that cryomagmatic activity was shorter and more in line with our simulation results. Read the JSG news release on the article and the EOS highlight.

12/13/2018: DOE website features work on convection in porous media

Our recent work on the effect of dispersion on convection in porous media was featured on the front page of the website of the Department of Energy’s office of Science. The work publish in GRL shows that solute dispersion is a dominant control on convection in granular porous media. Alex lead the experimental work published in GRL and Baole lead the computational work published in PRF, also see the JSG news release for a summary.

12/06/2018: Baole’s paper published by Physical Review Fluids

Physical Review Fluids has published Baole’s paper Rayleigh-Darcy convection with hydrodynamic dispersion.

11/18-20/2018: GPMG is heading to 2018 APS-DFD meeting

Sunday: Baole [D36.2] Tuesday: Marc [Q36.5] Thursday: Marc [P41B-03]

10/11/2018: Marc gives DeFord Lecture

Marc talked about our recent results on the effect of mechanical dispersion on solutal convection in porous media. This work is the cumulation of Alex’s experimental results (Liang et al. 2018) and Baole’s numerical work (Wen and Hesse 2018) in collaboration with David DiCarlo from Petroleum Engineering. You can find a recording of the talk here [video]. The original idea’s came from Kyung Won Chang’s work, one of the first PhD students in GPMG.

09/20/2018: Evan’s paper published by G³

Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems has published Evan’s paper on Re-evaluating fluid sources during skarn formation. Evan’s paper reassesses the conclusions of previous work suggesting that surface water is actively involved in the early stages of skarn formation. He finds that the chemistry of pore waters at depth and surface waters can be similar; instead of forming in the presence of surface water, garnets may form in the presence of chemically similar pore waters. His findings highlight that the chemistry of garnets that form during hydrothermal activity may not be faithful recorders of distinct fluid sources during their growth.

09/14/2018: Alex’s and Baole’s paper published by GRL

Geophysical Research Letter has published Alex’s and Baole’s paper on Effect of dispersion on solutal convection in porous media, where we use simple laboratory experiments to show that the convective pattern is controlled by a different process than previously thought. A Rayleigh number based on mechanical dispersion, which is independent of fluid properties, predicts the flow pattern of solutal convection in bead packs. See the Jackson School news release on the topic.

09/10/2018: Li’s paper published by Analytical Chemistry

Analytical Chemistry has published Li’s paper on Reactive Transport of Protons in Electro-Osmotic Displacements with Electrolyte Concentration Difference in a Microcapillary. The work in collaboration with Colin and Moran Wang develops an analytical theory that explains the hysteresis in electro-osmotic displacements.

09/07/2018: Colin’s paper published by JCH

The Journal of Contaminant Hydrology has published Colin’s paper on Chromatographic analysis of the acidity-salinity transport system. The work is a collaboration with Johannes Lützenkirchen at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and uses develops a theory that can be used to explore the coupling between acidity and salinity during transport in porous media. It shows how the strength of the coupling under basic and acidic conditions is related to the structure of the surface chemistry model.

08/31/2018: Baole’s paper published by JFM

The Journal of Fluid Mechanics has published Baole’s paper on Convective carbon dioxide dissolution in a closed porous medium. The work is a collaboration between Baole, Li and Daria and explores a new negative feedback during convective CO₂ dissolution in compartmentalized reservoirs. This work may provide an explanation for the persistence of natural CO₂ reservoirs over geological time.

08/24/2018: 400-th citation

Marc’s first PhD paper is cited 400 times [link]. The work with Amir Riaz, at the time postdoc at Stanford, and my advisors Hamdi Tchelepi and Lynn Orr looks at the stability of a gravitationally unstable diffusive boundary layer. A theoretical analysis of the classic Elder problem in porous media convection.

07/20/2018: Nick’s paper published by EPSL

Earth and Planetary Science has published Nick‘s paper on Plate tectonic cycling modulates Earth’s ³He/²²Ne ratio. Nick presents a new explanation for the elevated ³He/²²Ne ratio of the Earth’s mantle. Based on new experimental data that confirms the faster diffusion of He relative to Ne in olivine, Nick suggests a kinetic fractionation during channelized melt flow beneath mid-ocean ridges. His work also suggests that more than 95% of the mantle are degassed in primordial volatiles. Read more in this press release of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

06/5-7/2018: Marc is heading for LPI Cryovolcanism workshop

The Lunar and Planetary Institute is organizing a workshop on Cryovolcanism in the Solar System. See a video recording of Marc’s presentation here.

04/16/2018: Esben gives honours presentation

Esben is an undergraduate in the Geology program and has worked with Toti Larson and GPMG on the dissolution of rate of CO₂ into a water-saturated porous medium. His experiments clearly demonstrate the transition from very slow diffusive mass transport in small bead to fast convective dissolution in coarser beads. After graduation Esben will pursue a M.Sc. in Geology here at UT Austin with Charlie Kerans.

03/19-23/2018: Marc is heading for 49^th LPSC

Tuesday: Marc [#1679]

03/07/2018: Poroelastic response to a megathrust earthquake

Advances in Water Resources has published Kimmy’s paper on Modeling the Poroelastic Response to Megathrust Earthquakes: A look at the 2012 M_w 7.6 Costa Rican Event. Kimmy presents the first computations of the regional poroelastic response to a large megathrust earthquake. She show that these events introduce sustained regional groundwater flows that submarine groundwater discharge. Her presentation of this work at AGU received the outstanding student paper award – see below.

02/01/2018: Colin defends his PhD thesis

Colin McNeece successfully defended his PhD thesis on waves in reactive porous media, congratulations Colin. After graduation Colin will join Enthought in Austin, TX.

02/01/2018: Kimmy wins AGU Outstanding Student Paper Award

Kimmy’s oral presentation Poroelastic response to megathrust earthquakes: A look at the 2012 Mw 7.6 Costa Rican event at the 2017 AGU Fall meeting was awarded the the Outstanding Student Paper Award by the Geodesy section.

01/09/2018: And yet it moves

Earth and Planetary Science has published Jake’s paper on Mass transport in porosity waves. Jake shows that higher dimensional solitary porosity waves move mass and transport geochemical signatures. This work is a collaboration with John Rudge, facilitated by the Melt in the Mantle workshop at the Newton Institute in February 2017.

12/04/2017: Trickle-down core formation

The Proceedings of the National Academy has published Soheil’s paper on Percolative core formation in planetesimals enabled by hysteresis in metal connectivity. Soheil was jointly advised with Masha Prodanovic in petroleum engineering. Pore-scale simulations show that high dihedral angles may not be a barrier to metal percolation, because hysteresis in network connectivity allows the melt to drain once it has become connected.

11/04/2017: Modeling carbon dioxide dissolution

Advances in Water Resources just published Baole’s paper on Measurement and Modeling of CO₂ Mass Transfer in Brine at Reservoir Conditions. This paper arose from a collaboration with Kristian Jessen‘s group at the University of Southern California (USC), which lead the study. The USC group performed CO₂ dissolution experiments under reservoir conditions and Baole provided high resolution numerical simulations of the convective dissolution process. The convective dissolution model can accurately predict the pressure decay in the CO₂ and hence the overall mass transfer into the water.

11/07/2017: Colin McNeece wins Endowed Presidential Scholarship

Congratulations to Colin for receiving the Brundrett Endowed Presidential Scholarship, based on his academic achievements.

12/11-15/2017: GPMG is heading for AGU Fall meeting 2017

Monday: Daria [H11A-1150],  Alex [H13A-1353], Wednesday: Colin [H33E-1739], Jake [DI33C-05], Friday: Jake [DI53A-04], Kimmy [G53B-07], Marc [P54A-01]

09/12/2017: Taylor dispersion with sorption

The Journal of Fluid Mechanics just published Li‘s paper on Transient solute transport with sorption in Poiseuille flow. Li was visiting GPMG in 2016/2017 from Tsinghua University in China. His paper resolves the apparent contradiction between fluid mechanical and chromatographic studies of solute transport with sorption, by identifying early and late transport regimes.

09/06/2017: Acidity-Salinity Two-step

Environmental Science & Technology just published Colin’s paper on Challenges in coupling acidity and salinity transport in porous media. In contrast to most models, his experiments show that acidity-salinity coupling is equally strong under both acidic and basic conditions. Image shows the asymmetric response predicted by the standard triple layer model under acidic and basic conditions.

07/22/2017: Nic Dygert moves to UT Knoxville

Jackson Postdoctoral Fellow Nic Dygert has moved to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Nic will be an assistant professor of planetary science in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. Congratulations Nic!

06/15/2017: Jake Jordan defends PhD

Jake successfully defended his PhD thesis Gooie To Kablooie: The Partial Melting Of Planetary Interiors in Geological Sciences. After graduation Jake took a trip to pay homage to Josiah Willard Gibbs and will take up postdoctoral work with David Bercovici at Yale.

05/18/2017: Noble gas subduction paper published

Earth and Planetary Science Letters just published Noble gases recycled into the mantle through cold subduction. The study that models the transport of noble gases during subduction of oceanic crust was lead by former JSG Postdoc Andy Smye. Andy has now moved on to a faculty position at Penn State.

03/30/2017: Mixed Method for Magma Dynamics

The SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing just published our article on Mixed Methods for Two-Phase Darcy–Stokes Mixtures of Partially Melted Materials with Regions of Zero Porosity. The was led by Todd Arbogast from the Department of Mathematics and resulted from the PhD of co-supervised CSEM student Avi Taicher. The methods allows us to treat regions with vanishing porosity without deterioration of the condition number of the linear system.

03/21/2017: Kimberly McCormack selected as P.E.O. Scholar

P.E.O. Scholar Awards are one-time, competitive, merit-based awards for women of the United States and Canada who are pursuing a doctoral level degree at an accredited college or university. In addition to recognizing and encouraging excellence in higher education, these awards provide partial support for study and research for women who will make significant contributions in their varied fields of endeavor. Congratulations, Kimmy!

03/20-24/2017: GPMG is heading for 48^th LPSC

Monday: Nic [#2421], Tuesday: Jake [#2054], Wednesday: Marc [#1584]
Nic and Marc at the poster session Tuesday evening.

03/18/2017: Convection paper cited 100 times

The paper Convective dissolution of carbon dioxide in saline aquifers has been cited 100 times in since 2010. The paper provides the first experimental constraints on convective solute fluxes. A topic of fundamental fluid mechanical importance and with direct implications for geological carbon storage. This paper arose from a summer Marc spent at the Institute of Theoretical Geophysics in Cambridge in 2010.

12/12-17/2016: GPMG is heading for AGU Fall meeting 2016

Monday: Nic [DI11A-2343], Colin [H13H-1494],  Tuesday: Kimberly [NH21A-1839], Daria [PA23C-2248] Friday: Li [H51D-1520], Marc [MR51D-03, H53M-01],

11/01/2016: Daria’s paper on underpressure published

Geology has published Daria’s study of Causes of underpressure in natural CO₂ reservoirs and implications for geological storage. The paper discusses the origin of the surprising under pressure at Bravo Dome natural CO₂ reservoir.

10/09/2016: Colin’s paper on proton transport in porous media is published

Advances in Water Resources has published Colin‘s study of Reactive transport of aqueous protons in porous media. The paper extends chromatographic theory to modern surface complexation models and identifies auto-ionization of water as the key to unusual transport behavior of protons. Oh, and then there are also a few experiments.

9/25/2016: Jake and Evan are Presidential

Congratulations to Jake Jordan for receiving the Brundrett Endowed Presidential Scholarship and to Evan Ramos for receiving the Duchin Endowed Presidential Scholarship, based on their academic achievements.

9/25-28/2016: GPMG is heading for GSA 2016

Evan and Marc are heading to Denver for the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America.

Monday: Marc [281217], Marc [281446]
Tuesday: Evan [283355]

06/20/2016: Kiran’s paper on noble gas fractionation during gas migration published

Earth and Planetary Science Letters has published Kiran’s analysis of Noble gas fractionation in subsurface migration in collaboration with Toti Larson. The paper demonstrates the co-enrichment co-injected and dissolved noble gases, at the front of a migrating gas plume.

23/05/2016: Soheil Ghanbarzadeh defends PhD

Soheil successfully defended his PhD thesis Pore Fluid Percolation and Flow in Ductile Rocks in Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering. After graduation Soheil will work for BP in Houston.

05/06/2016: 300-th citation

Marc’s first PhD paper is cited 300 times [link]. The work with Amir Riaz, at the time postdoc at Stanford, and my advisors Hamdi Tchelepi and Lynn Orr looks at the stability of a gravitationally unstable diffusive boundary layer. A theoretical analysis of the classic Elder problem in porous media convection.

03/23/2016: Kiran’s paper on retention of noble gases in the continental crust published in EPSL

Earth and Planetary Science Letters has published Kiran’s paper showing that  Noble gases preserve history of retentive continental crust in the Bravo Dome natural CO₂ field, New Mexico. The paper is collaboration with Jake Jordan and Andrew Smye currently at Oxford University.

01/30/2016: Marc’s paper on convective dissolution with Mario Martinez published in WRR

Water Resources Research has published Marc’s paper co-authored with Mario Martines from Sandia National Laboratory on Two-phase convective CO₂ dissolution in saline aquifers that studies the effect of the capillary transition zone on the convective dissolution flux.

12/14-18/2015: GPMG is heading for AGU Fall meeting 2015

Monday: Nic [V11E-02] Tuesday: Soheil [H21A-1324], Kimberly [G21A-1012], Alex [V21C-3051], Valentina [H24A-03], Colin [H24A-07], Kiran [H23K-07] Wednesday: Marc [V33A-3084], Nic [T32C-05] Thursday: Daria [H41C-1318]

12/11/2015: Marc wins Jackson School outstanding research award

Dean Mosher awarded Marc the Jackson School Outstanding research award for the work completed in the Geological Porous Media Group in the last five years.

12/19/2015: Jake’s analysis of reactive melt transport published in G³

Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems has published Jake‘s paper on Reactive transport in a partially molten system with binary solid solution that extends classic analysis of the ‘mantle as a chromatographic column’ to major elements. It is also notable for notational flourishes.

11/27/2015: Soheil’s paper on fluid percolation in rock salt published in Science

Science Magazine has published Soheil’s paper on Deformation-Assisted Fluid Percolation in Rock Salt that presents evidence for fluid percolation in rock salt.

14-15 & 21-22 Nov 2015: Jake at EAST Austin Studio Tour

Pretentious pen plotter pageant. Peerless plots for public purchase. EAST

08/01/2015: Visiting graduate student Li  Zhang arrived

Li is a PhD student with Moran Wang‘s group at Tsinghua in Bejing. He is interested in reactive transport and electrokinetic phenomena in porous media. I am developing numerical tools, basically with lattice Boltzmann method, to simulate the pore-scale processes. Welcome Li!

07/01/2015: Postdoc Baole Wen joins Institute of Computational Engineering and Science

Baole is a ICES Postdoctoral Fellow, his research focuses on unstable fluid flows and inverse methods. Baole got his PhD at the University of New Hampshire. He will be working with GPMG and the Omar Ghattas to develop an inverse model for Bravo Dome Natural CO₂ reservoir. Welcome Baole!

06/02/2015: Soheil’s paper on Level-set methods is published in JCP

The Journal of Computational Physics has published Soheil’s paper on A level set method for texturally equilibrated pore networks that allows the three-dimensional computations of the geometry of pores in realistic irregular grains.

05/21/2015: DOE highlights Bravo Dome research

The Department of Energy has highlighted Kiran’s PNAS paper constraining dissolution trapping at Bravo Dome, NM on its Basic Energy Science and Discovery and Innovation websites and in the quarterly Energy Frontiers Research Center (EFRC) newsletter. This work was funded by the DOE through Center for Subsurface Energy Security (CFSES) an EFRC operated by Sandia National Labs and the University of Texas at Austin. The release of the highlight has been picked up by phys.org.

04/15/2014: Kiran and Soheil receive Statoil Fellowships

Soheil’s and Kiran’s Statoil Fellowships have been renewed. Congratulations Soheil and Kiran.

04/15/2015: Kimberly McCormack receives NSF Graduate Fellowship

Kimmy is one of 5 Jackson School Graduate students that have been selected for the prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellowship [link]. Congratulations Kimmy.

04/12/2015: Soheil Ghanbarzadeh presents at APS-April meeting

Soheil presented his work on A level set method for solid-liquid interface tracking in texturally equilibrated pore networks in the session Advances in Computational Physics at the APS April Meeting 2015 in Baltimore.

03/25/2015: Kimberly McCormack defends PhD proposal

Kimmy successfully defended her PhD proposal on Bayesian inversion of geodetic and hydrological data to study the coupling of flow and seismicity in Geological Sciences. Congratulations!

03/16/2015: Paper with collaborators from BP-Institute is published in JFM

The Journal of Fluid Mechanics has published a paper on Multiple steady states in exchange flows across faults and the dissolution of CO₂ that is the result of Kyung-won Chang’s visits to the BP-Institute in the summers of 2012 and 2013.

03/01/2015: Nic’s paper on CO₂ leakage published in IJGGC

The International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control has published Nic’s paper on Reactive transport of CO₂-saturated water in a cement fracture: Application to wellbore leakage during geologic CO₂ storage that shows that the flow of CO₂ saturated brine along fractures is likely to diminish over time.

01/01/2015: Postdoc Nicholas Dygert joins Jackson School of Geoscience

Nick is a JSG Postdoctoral Fellow, his research focuses on understanding the physical and chemical evolution of the terrestrial and lunar mantles using experiments, numerical models, and field studies. Nick got his PhD at Brown University and planning to collaborate with GPMG. Welcome Nick!

12/15-19/2014: GPMG is heading for AGU Fall meeting 2014

Monday: Kiran [V13A-4761], Jake [DI13B-4272], Soheil [DI13B-4282], Colin Jackson (collaborator from Brown) [V11C-4742] Tuesday: Daria [H21A-0693], Mario Martinez (collaborator from Sandia) [H24A-03] Wednesday: Kyung-Won (now at Stanford) [H33D-0841] Thursday: Colin [H43M-1145] Friday: Kimmy [S53A-4476]

12/15/2014: Deep Carbon Observatory highlight

The press release for the Midterm Scientific Report of the of the Deep Carbon Observatory highlights Kiran’s constraints on CO₂ volumes and fluxes at Bravo Dome, NM as “an often-overlooked reservoir of the deep carbon cycle” [Sathaye et al. 2014].

12/8/2014: 100-th citation

Marc’s third PhD paper, Gravity currents with residual trapping, has been cited 100 times. The work with my advisors Hamdi Tchelepi and Lynn Orr determines the migration distance of a gravity current that is continuously loosing mass due to capillary trapping in a sloping layer.

12/05/2014: Daria Ahkbari defends PhD proposal

Daria successfully defended his PhD proposal on Causes of abnormally low-pressure in natural CO₂ reservoirs and implications for the safety of Geological CO₂ Storage in Geological Sciences.

12/01/2014: Colin McNeece defends PhD proposal

Colin successfully defended his PhD proposal on Surface Complexation and Transport Behavior of Protons in Geological Sciences.

12/01/2014: Avi Taicher defends PhD

Avi Taicher successfully defended his PhD thesis Mixed Framework for Darcy-Stokes Mixtures in Computational Science, Engineering, and Mathematics. After graduation Avi will look for employment in industry.

11/24/2014: Fast solute transport highlighted

Together with his collaborators Valentina Prigiobbe (Stevens Institute of Technology) and Steven Bryant (University of Calgary), Marc published an accessible article titled “Breaking Waves” (page 34-36) in International Innovation that summarizes their work on fast solute transport over the last few years.

10/14/2014: Science News covers Kiran’s paper

Today Science News featured Kiran’s constraints on convective dissolution rates in their news section under the headline “Storing greenhouse gases — for a million years“, this article also made it into the news letter of the Geochemical Society. Science writer Jia You apparently decided that senior GPMG affiliate Martin Cassidy was the most photogenic team member. A good summary of Kiran’s work is also featured on Ars Technica under the title Natural underground CO2 reservoir reveals clues about storage.

10/13/2014: Kiran’s paper on CO₂ dissolution published

The Proceedings of the National Academy have published Kiran’s paper on Constraints in the magnitude and rate of CO2 dissolution at Bravo Dome natural gas field, co-authored with Daniel Stockli from the Jackson school and Martin Cassidy from the University of Houston.

09/26/2014: Celebrating the (re) discovery of spinosaurus

In Marc’s absence the Geological Porous Media Group decided to repurpose the weekly group meeting to visit to the Texas Natural History Museum to celebrate the re-discovery of spinosaurus by Jake’s former girlfriend’s brother’s uncle – or something like that.

07/25/2014: Soheil’s paper on textural equilibrium published

Physical Review Letters have published Soheil’s paper on Percolation and grain boundary wetting in anisotropic texturally equilibrated pore networks, co-authored with Maša Prodanović, Soheil’s advisor in Petroleum and Geosystem Engineering.

07/16/2014: Ashwin’s paper on reactive transport published

Water Resources Research has published Ashwin’s paper on Analytical Solutions for Flow in Porous Media with Multicomponent Cation Exchange Reactions. The work is co-authored with Larry Lake, Ashwin’s advisor in Petroleum and Geosystem Engineering and Russell John from Energy and Mineral Engineering at PennState.

07/11/2014: DOE Energy Frontiers Research Center is renewed

The Center for Subsurface Energy Security a DOE Energy Frontiers Research Center lead by the Center for Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering (PGE) has been been renewed for 4 additional years. The center aims to improve geologic CO2 storage, which is a key technology for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel consumption — especially from coal and natural gas used to generate electricity. Our GPMG team will continue to address the long-term fate of CO2 in geological formations through the study of geological analogs.

[PGE announcement]

07/6-11/2014: GRC Flow and Transport on Permeable Media

Kiran, Jake, Daria and Colin are attending the GRC on Flow and Transport in Porous Media at Bates College in Lewiston, ME. Amongst other distinctions the conference provides a prime training ground for crustacean etiquette, i.e., lobster eating skills.

[GRC]

05/10/2014: Nic’s in-official graduation

While Dr. Huerta could not visit Austin for official graduation ceremonies, he made sure he does not miss out on his co-advisors annual spring BBQ. Nic’s advice to graduate students: “Enjoy grad school, because work sucks”. He is a man of his word, he max’d out on his time in graduate school with two masters degrees and a PhD. Well done.

04/29/2014: Jacob Jordan defends PhD proposal

Congratulations to Jake for successfully defending his Ph.D. proposal on The role of lithological heterogeneities during partial melting in the continental mantle. Well done, Watson!

04/25/2014: Soheil Ghanbarzadeh defends PhD proposal

Congratulations to Soheil for successfully defending his Ph.D. proposal on Characterization and Compaction Phenomena in Anisotropic Polycrystalline Materials with Texturally Equilibrated Pores in the Department of Geosystems and Petroleum Engineering.

04/24/2014: Dr. Ashwin Venkatraman successfully defends PhD

Congratulations to Ashwin for successfully defending his Ph.D. in the Department of Geosystems and Petroleum Engineering (PGE). His main advisors in PGE were Prof.’s Lake and John (now and Penn State). He pursued a side project on reactive transport with ion-exchange with Marc. After graduating from UT Austin Ashwin is considering to join the City College of New York as a faculty member.

04/15/2014: Kiran and Soheil receive Statoil Fellowships

Soheil’s Statoil Fellowship to study salt permeability was renewed for the third time and Kiran has received a new Statoil Fellowship to study the use of novel geochemical tracers in reservoir characterization.

02/24/2014: Marc’s paper on poroelastic inversion published

The Journal of Geophysical Research – Solid Earth published Marc’s paper on Joint inversion in coupled quasi-static poroelasticity, co-authored with Georg Stadler from the Institute of Computational Sciences and Engineering at UT Austin.

01/28/2014: “Focus on Fluids” article discusses recent paper

Diogo Bolster’s Focus on Fluids article in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics discusses a recent paper Marc co-authored with MIT collaborators Michael Szulczewski and Ruben Juanes from the Department of Civil Engineering at MIT. The paper discusses the dissolution of structurally trapped CO2 driven by the formation of a dense current of dissolved CO2 along the base of the aquifer. JFM Focus on Fluids selects one particularly interesting article published in Journal of Fluid Mechanics for an extended review and discussion by an acknowledged and invited expert in the field.

12/07/2013: Dr. Kyung-won Chang and Dr. Nicolas Huerta graduate

Kyung-won and Nic successfully defended their Ph.D.’s this fall. Congratulations to the first two graduates of the Geological Porous Media Group. Nic will join the National Energy Technology Laboratory in Albany, Oregon as a full-time research scientist. Kyung-won will join the Stanford Center for Induced and Triggered Seismicity as a postdoctoral scholar working with Prof. Paul Segall.

12/01/2013: Journal of Fluid Mechanics volume 736 cover art

A figure from from paper Carbon dioxide dissolution in structural and stratigraphic traps co-authored by Marc together with Michael Szulczewski and Ruben Juanes from the Department of Civil Engineering at MIT has been selected as cover art for the Journal of Fluid Mechanics volume 736. The image shows dense CO₂ saturated brine sinking below a trapped plume of CO₂ and coalescing to form a diffusive gravity current along the base of the reservoir.

06/18/2013: Marc wins SIAM Geosciences Junior Scientist Prize

Marc Hesse received the SIAG/Geosciences Junior Scientist Prize at the 2013 SIAM Conference on Mathematical and Computational Issues in the Geosciences (GS13), to be held June 17-20, 2013, in Padua, Italy. The SIAM Activity Group on Geosciences (SIAG/GS) awards its Junior Scientist Prize to an outstanding junior researcher in the field of geosciences.

The award is a recognition for “outstanding contributions to mathematical analysis and computational methods for waves in complex subsurface applications.”

06/01/2013: Associate editor TiPM

Marc becomes associate editor of the journal Transport in Porous Media.

05/09/2013: 2^nd annual group canoe trip on the Guadalupe river

The second annual Guadalupe river canoe trip was completed in high spirits despite low water and followed up with some pulled pork sandwiches, curly fries, and funnel cake in Luckenbach, TX (pop. 3). Click on the Gruppenphoto to enlarge it.

04/17/2013: Marc receives Distinguished Teaching Award

Marc received the G. Moses and Carolyn G. Knebel Distinguished Teaching Award for his new graduate class Essentials of Flow in Porous Media. The class was first taught in the Spring semester 2013 and aims to introduce students from the geosciences, engineering and applied mathematics to fundamental concepts of flow and transport in porous media. The award recognized excellence in graduate teaching and the awardee is selected by the graduate students in the Department of Geological Sciences.

02/27/2013: Ashwin wins GAIN 2013 competition

GAIN (Graduate and Industry Networking) is an annual event hosted by the Graduate Engineering Council at The University of Texas at Austin. It is both a broad Networking opportunity and an academically rigorous competition that allows The Cockrell School of Engineering to showcase its best and brightest graduate students.

02/02/2013: GPMG best represented research group
Jake Jordan wins early career poster award

Geological Porous Media Group comes out top the 2^nd Annual Jackson School Research Symposium. Jake Jordan won 2nd place in the ‘early career graduate’ category for his poster on reactive melt transport.

04/30/2012: Soheil Ghanbarzadeh wins Statoil doctoral fellowship:

Soheil won the Statoil graduate fellowship to study the pore network in rock salt. Due to the high solubility the shape of the pores is close to textural equilibrium, and therefore a minimal surface. The topology of the network is determined by the surface tension between different salt grains and between the salt and the brine.  As the surface energies change with temperature and pressure, the porenetwork may become connected and salt, which is usually considered impermeable, can become a major fluid pathway.

04/02/2012: Quinn Wenning wins Undergrad Best Poster Award:

Quinn Wenning won the Undergraduate Best Poster Award at the 1^st Annual Jackson School Research Symposium, for his project Characterizing Reactive Flow Paths in Fractured Cement with PhD student Nicolas Huerta.

12/18/2011: 100-th citation

Marc’s first PhD paper is cited 100 times. The work with Amir Riaz, at the time postdoc at Stanford, and my advisors Hamdi Tchelepi and Lynn Orr looks at the stability of a gravitationally unstable diffusive boundary layer. A theoretical analysis of the classic Elder problem in porous media convection.

Undergraduate research fellowship competition

Quinn Wenning won a $1000 a Spring 2012  Undergraduate Research Fellowship for his project on reactive flow on in cement fractures with PhD student Nicolas Huerta.

Cover art: Communications in Computational Physics

The cover of for volume 10, number 1 of Communications in Computational Physics features a simulation from our article Modelling magma dynamics with a mixed Fourier collocation – discontinuous Galerkin method co-authored with Dr. Alan Schiemenz (LMU Munich) and Prof. Jan Hesthaven (Brown).

The image, shown on the right, shows the localization of the melt flow due to reactive feedback in the top row and the orthopyroxene abundance in the mantle in the lower row.

Abraham Taicher receives NIMS Fellowship 2011-2012

PhD student Abraham Taicher has received the 2011-2012 National Initiative for Modeling and Simulations Fellowship from the CSEM graduate program.

15-16/08/11: Reactive Flow Summer School
by Peter Lichtner (LANL) and Glenn Hammond (PNNL)

This shortcourse will provide a hands-on introduction to PFLOTRAN, a massively parallel subsurface reactive flow and transport computer code that runs on labtops to high-end supercomputers. The code includes Richards equation for variably saturated media, two-phase CO₂-H₂O, and thermal-hydrologic-chemical (THC) modes coupled to reactive transport in multicomponent systems.

5/3/11: Austin Statesman features JSG Explore UT experiment

With great support from the Jackson School Marc Hesse and Kelly Quinney built a large version of the famous cornstarch & water experiment for Explore UT. The  experiment demonstrates shear thickening behavior and allows you to “walk on water”.  It was a big success and more than 500 children walked the walk.

Kyung-won wins AAPG – Allan & Eleanor Martini Grant

Kyung-won Chang received the grant to study buoyancy driven exchange flows at the BP-Institute. He developed a technique to quantify the exchange flow and is now using it to constrain leakage rates along permeable conduits and the role of hydro-mechanical dispersion in counter current flows.

12/8/10: GRL editor’s highlight:
Characterizing channels for transport of melt in mantle

To investigate how dunite channels would form and how melt would flow through them in an upwelling mantle, Liang et al. (2010) conducted numerical simulations. They found that interconnected dunite channels form the shallow part of the porous channels through which melt passes; deeper in the mantle, melt travels through channels composed of the rocks harzburgite and lherzolite. These results could help geologists interpret field measurements and improve models for mantle melt migration, shedding light on mantle dynamics and crust formation.

Liang, Y., A. Schiemenz, M. A. Hesse, E. M. Parmentier, and J. S. Hesthaven (2010), High-porosity channels for melt migration in the mantle: Top is the dunite and bottom is the harzburgite and lherzolite, Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L15306, doi:10.1029/2010GL044162.