Research
Visit the websites of two current major projects of the GFD Group:
- Influence of plate tectonics on life evolution and biodiversity: bio-geodynamical numerical modeling approach: link
- Long-term evolution of the Earth from the base of the mantle to the top of the atmosphere: Understanding the mechanisms leading to ‘greenhouse’ and ‘icehouse’ regimes: external page link
The unifying goal of the group’s research is to understand the formation, evolution and present-day dynamics of the mantle and lithosphere of Earth and other terrestrial bodies. This requires studying a wide range of scales from crystal-melt mushes, to features that can be observed by a geologist in the field, to global, 3D spherical planets. Research covers a correspondingly wide range of topics, from short-term crustal and lithospheric deformation, to the geochemical evolution of the entire planet over billions of years. The main investigative tool for this research is computational modelling of physical processes coupled to or constrained by interdisciplinary knowledge from geology, seismology, geochemistry and mineral physics.
Our research activities can be grouped into four inter-related topics:
Our group pursues these research themes in collaboration with many institutes and laboratories internal to ETH Zurich including; SED, EPM, IGP, Institute of Geology. GFD researchers actively collaborate with the following international partners: Lab of Seismo, Utrecht; Dept. of Geology and Geophysics, Yale; SeismoLab, Caltech; Computational Laboratory, USI Lugano; PETSc development team, Argonne National Laboratory.