Physics of Geological Processes – a Norwegian Center of Excellence at the University of Oslo
(see: http://www.fys.uio.no/pgp for more information, including the Annual reports for 2003-2009)
1.
List of staff members
Professors: Torgeir B. Andersen, Haakon Austrheim, Bjørn Jamtveit, Yuri Podladchikov, Trond
Torsvik; Non-tenured researchers: Øyivind Hammer, Olivier Galland, Galen Gisler, Karen Mair,
Adriano Mazzini, Sergei Medvedev, Dani Schmid, Henrik Svensen, Stephanie Werner; Adjunct
Professors/researchers: Susanne Buiter, Raymond Fletcher, Carmen Gaina, Ebbe Hartz, Paul
Meakin, Sverre Planke, Francois Renard, Bernhard Steinberger: Postdoctoral Associates:
LuizaAngheluta, Marcin Dabrowski, Pavel Dubrovine, Douwe van Hinsbergen, Marco Roscher,
Julien Scheibert, Nina Simon, Victoriya Yarushina
2. Organization, research leadership and strategy
Physics of Geological Processes (PGP) is an integrated cross-disciplinary research center. The primary objectives of the center are to obtain a fundamental and quantitative understanding of the Earth’s complex patterns and processes, and to effectively inform the educational community, industry and the public about the its research and its impacts on society. The centre was formed in 2003 as a result of a long lasting collaboration between physicists and geologists at the University of Oslo (UiO). Since February 2006,
PGP has been directed by Bjørn Jamtveit, and it currently has 8 faculty (including 3 members of the physics faculty, who are not listed above), 8 adjunct Professors, 9 Senior Researchers & 7 Postdoctoral
Associates, 20 PhD students, and 4 technical-administrative staff. The total budget is ca 35 MNOK, of which 14 MNOK is covered by the Center of Excellence (CoE) grant, 1/3 is contributed by the university, and the remainder is funded externally (European Union, Norwegian Research Council and industry).
Figure 1, illustrates the administrative organization of PGP.
PGP’s strategy is to bring together an international group of scientists from the fields of Geology, Physics and Applied Mathematics who are committed to working together on challenging problems that transcend these traditional disciplines. PGP is an interdisciplinary centre in which: geological processes are investigated by integrating fieldwork, experiments, theory and computer modelling; a stimulating and challenging program is offered to PhD and Master students; and research is supported by commercial enterprises, national and international foundations, and public agencies.

During its first three years, PGP focused on generating a stimulating cross-disciplinary research environment for its research staff, students and visitors. From 2010 onwards PGP built on this foundation and its future research was organized into three main projects: Earth Materials, Fluid Earth and Solid
Earth.
These core programs contain individual research projects, each including at least three out of the four scientific approaches: field-, experimental-, theoretical- and numerical studies. This has successfully promoted synergetic multidisciplinary interactions, and our future research will be guided by this integrative philosophy.
3. Description of research activities
Earth Materials
The Earth Materials group explores the interplay between fluid transport and brittle/ductile deformation in complex geo-materials. The structure of rocks affects and is shaped by fluid flow and mechanical processes over a very wide range of scales, and the interaction between flow and deformation is also important on a wide range of scales in many geosystems. While homogenized descriptions are usually sought to link processes across multiple scales, the upscaling approach is challenged by the development of instabilities and localization, calling for a paradigm shift beyond the effective medium approach.
The Earth Materials group operates in an integrated framework comprising field geology, laboratory analysis, laboratory experiments, numerical simulations and theoretical models. Field work is conducted in areas that provides the planet’s best natural laboratories. Rock samples obtained during field campaigns are imaged using modern techniques such as computed tomography and transmission electron microscopy.
In-house developed image analysis tools are employed to quantitatively analyze the microstructure. In the
PGP laboratories, mechanical effects related to rock heterogeneity and chemical processes occurring at solid-fluid interfaces are investigated. Laboratory experiments are augmented by numerical simulations of brittle/viscous deformation and porous flow. Tailored parallel-implementations of numerical codes allow us to study models at extreme resolutions dictated by the inherent complexity of geo-materials, and effective mechanical and transport properties are estimated by means of theoretical models.
Among the most important contributions from this group was the breakthrough in understanding how rocks and other materials may fail by shear localization during shear induced thermal runaway. This work and its geological implications was published both in the physics literature (highlighted paper in Physical
Review Letters ) and in the geoscience literature ( Nature geosciences ).
Fluid Earth
The Fluid Earth group is concerned with the role that fluids play in the formation of patterns and structures on Earth. The interactions of fluids with one another and with the solid components of the Earth are central to the evolution of structure on Earth. Fluids can react with solid materials to form new fluids or other solids; fluids can deform, fragment, dissolve or otherwise alter solid materials; solid materials can undergo fluidisation transformations in which they begin to act as fluids; and solid materials can be deposited from flowing fluids. Sometimes these processes are very slow, and sometimes they are rapid and violent. A fluid may percolate slowly through a solid matrix until it is trapped by an impermeable cap; if pressure builds up sufficiently, the cap may eventually break in a violent release, or venting, of fluid to the atmosphere. The most important fluids at the surface of the Earth are the air of the atmosphere, the water of oceans, lakes and rivers, molten rock or magmas, and granular materials that sometimes act collectively as fluids. Beneath the surface, porous solid media are filled with fluids such as air, water, petroleum and molten material. Certain fluids, for example petroleum and natural gas, are economically important resources; others, such as carbon dioxide and volcanic emissions, may be detrimental to the environment and climate. Understanding fluid/rock interactions is important for economic development, for understanding Earth’s structural history and development, and for predicting natural hazards and mitigating their effects.
Field investigations carried out by the Fluid Earth group include surveys of ocean floor seeps and pockmarks, sampling fluids and gases from mud volcano's and hydrothermal vent complexes, taking solid samples from fossil intrusions of molten rock in the form of dikes and sills, and of source rocks that may be rich in hydrocarbons. Complimentary experimental work investigates the eruption of molten material

through cohesive media and examines conditions under which fluidisation occurs using a combination of granular and fluid materials. Numerical simulations are performed with granular material codes and with multi-material fluid codes at both laboratory and natural scales to better understand the dynamics of geological processes, to predict the effects of geo-hazards and develop mitigation strategies for them, and to develop better ways of discovering and exploiting resources.
Among the most important contributions from this group was the realization that contact metamorphism in volcanic sedimentary basins may have cause some of the most significant climatic excursions in the past.
The 2004 cover story in Nature on this discovery is currently among the most frequently cited papers in
Norwegian earth sciences.
Solid Earth
The Solid Earth team addresses fundamental issues such as: (i) driving forces for plate motions and the consequent deformation of the lithosphere (including metamorphic and deformation processes in subduction and continent-continent collision environments, and lithospheric extension and basin formation at divergent margins); (ii) processes in the deep mantle and their relation to plate motions and surface volcanic processes (including hotspots and large igneous provinces); (iii) lithospheric and mantle processes that govern topography and bathymetry (including intra-cratonic basin formation); (iv) processes that govern the formation and break-up of supercontinents; and (v) comparative planetology probing for similarities and differences between the Earth and other planets in order to improve our understanding on how each of them works.
Plate tectonics, as fundamentally unifying to the earth sciences as Darwin's evolution theory is to life sciences, characterizes the complex and dynamic evolution of the outer shell of the Earth in terms of rigid plates. These plates overlie and interact with the Earth's slowly convecting mantle. Even though our understanding of links between mantle convection and plate tectonics is improving, notably through subsurface tomographic images, advances in mineral physics and improved absolute plate motion reference frames, there is still no generally accepted mechanism that consistently explains plate tectonics in the framework of mantle convection. It is a prime challenge for the Solid Earth team to integrate plate tectonics into mantle dynamics.
A very recent and important contribution from this group is the realization that mantle plumes related to some of the major hot spots and large igneous provinces may be causally linked to low velocity zones at the core-mantle boundary. This was published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters , and in a recent paper in Nature (in revision by April 2010) it is also shown that the locality of diamond bearing kimberlite pipes may be controlled by the same deep mantle structures.
Total output
After the initial 5-year period, during which considerable effort was spent on establishing a real crossdisciplinary research group with a common focus and standard of research, PGP’s production rate is now
70-80 papers (77 for 2009) in ISI journals per year. This is about 4.2 papers per senior researcher man year (i.e. faculty and non-tenured senior personnel) per year. The figure below shows the citation rate for papers published by PGP in the project period (2003-2009). In total PGP has produced about 300 ISIpublications, in journals including Nature, Science, Nature geosciences, Nature physics, PNAS , and ca. 30 papers in Earth and Planetary Science Letters.
In addition to the ISI-publications, PGP staff produce about 10 papers in books and proceedings, present
50-60 invited talks, contribute 100-130 conference presentations (ca 80-85 outside Norway), and arrange
10-20 field trips each year. During the CoE period, PGP has furthermore, as part of its outreach activity, contributed to more than 100 TV and Radio programs, around 200 articles in newspapers and magazines,
2 popular science books (1 more to be published in 2010), 6 Art exhibitions (2 outside Norway), and more than 100 popular talks in the project period.

Education
Including current staff, we have so far hosted 34 Postdoctoral Associates and non-tenured researchers (10 now work for academic institutions abroad), educated 13 PhD students (9 now work for academic institutions in Norway or abroad) and 20 Masters students (5 now in a PhD program).
4. Research collaboration (internal, national, international, industry/public sector)
PGP is a cross-disciplinary research unit with participants from the departments of physics and geosciences at the UiO, in addition to students and non-tenured researchers. It is organized as a unit directly under the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. We publish papers both in the earth science literature (ca 75%) and in the physics literature (ca 25%). In addition we have educated one joint
PhD student with the Department of Biology (supervised from PGP), and we currently have another PhD student about to complete a PhD in informatics.
PGP currently includes 20 PhD students from 15 nations, 6 Postdoctoral Associates from 5 nations, and 15 non-tenured researchers from 10 nations. About 55% of all man years at PGP are carried out by non-
Norwegians.
58 out of PGP’s 77 ISI-papers in 2009 were co-authored with scientist based outside Norway. Since 2007, we have hosted 10 international students conducting parts of their master projects at PGP, carried out about 50 field trips on all continents except Antarctica, with participants from other Norwegian and foreign research institutions and the Norwegian petroleum industry, and arranged 15-20 special sessions at the annual American Geophysical Union fall meetings in San Francisco, the European Geophysical Union meetings in Vienna, and at the Goldschmidt conferences. In addition PGP has arranged 2-3 international meetings and workshops in Norway every year, including the cross-disciplinary Kongsberg Seminar series, which have been arranged by the PGP director every year since 1994.
In addition to an extensive web of national and international collaborators, PGP is ‘formally’ collaborating with the petroleum industry through 3 industry-financed projects, with other research institutions through the funding of 1 project from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA), 2 from the Norwegian
Geological Survey, 2 from the University of Bergen and one from the Department of Geosciences at UiO.
We are also participating in 2 EU-projects (including 1 PostDoc and 2 PhD students working at PGP).
5. Other information of relevance to the evaluation
PGP, as a Center of Excellence, has a 10 year contract. This contract expires on February 1 st
2013. The funding situation for the current non-tenured staff is uncertain after this date.