Deep Earth dynamics:

What is happening beneath our feet?

Speakers: Fabrizio Nestola

Patrick Cordier
Yan Lavallée
Eleonora Rivalta
Moderator: Sierd Cloetingh
 Earth dynamics: What is happening beneath our feet?

Fabrizio Nestola Patrick Cordier

Sierd Cloetingh

Eleonora Rivalta Yan Lavallée

 The Geosciences community - diversity and impact

Research: Professional activities:

• Atmospheric Sciences • oil & gas, minerals
• Biogeosciences • geothermal energy, carbon sequestration
• Climate: Past, Present & Future • consultancy, government agencies on natural
• Energy & Resources hazards, pollution, climate, etc.
• Geodynamics, Tectonics & Structural Geology
• Geomorphology
• Geochemistry, Mineralogy, Petrology & Volcanology The European Geosciences Union
• Hydrology gathers >10,000 geoscientists and stakeholders
• Natural Hazards
• Ocean Sciences at the annual General Assembly
• Planetary and Solar System Sciences Vienna, Austria, 23–28 April 2017
• Seismology
• Stratigraphy, Sedimentology and Palaeontology
• Soil Science
Intraplate deformation: plumes
Plumes in the upper mantle resolved from seismic tomography
(in the Northern Atlantic, depth slice between 100 – 200 km)

Rickers et al., 2013.

Earth Planet. Sci. Letts.

4
Continental topography is the product of the interaction between processes operating deep in the Earth, on its
surface and in the atmosphere. It’s understanding requires a multidisciplinary approach
Cross-border nature of earth sciences
Natural hazards occur everywhere and do not respect national borders

6
Earth dynamics: What is happening beneath our feet?

Fabrizio Nestola Patrick Cordier

Eleonora Rivalta Yan Lavallée

 Session: Deep-Earth dynamics:
what is happening beneath our feet?

Diamonds: journey to the center of the Earth

Fabrizio Nestola
Department of Geosciences, University of Padova, Italy
 Fabrizio Nestola
Full Professor in Mineralogy and Crystallography
Department of Geosciences
University of Padova (Italy)

Expertise and research interests:

“natural diamonds
and their mineral inclusions”

“implications for Earth Sciences”

Fabrizio Nestola
1999: MSc. in Geological Sciences 2004-2005:
University of Torino Alexander von Humboldt
Italy Research Fellowship,
Bayerisches Geoinstitut,
University of Bayreuth
Germany 2006 to 2010:
2003: Ph.D. in Mineralogy and Crystallography Permanent Researcher in
University of Modena and Reggio Emilia Mineralogy,
Italy
University of Padova
Italy
2006: Post-doc
Virginia Tech, Blacksburg
USA 2010 to 2014:
Associate Professor in 2013: ERC STARTING
Mineralogy, GRANT
University of Padova INDIMEDEA
Italy
2015:
FULL PROFESSOR
University of Padova
 Full Professor position
ERC Starting Grant

First year of publication

Source: www.scopus.com
What I actually do….

I am not going to talk …..

about such diamonds…

We only like…
very ugly diamonds…!!!
WHY????
Pure and perfect diamonds
do not provide
almost any
geological information
These diamonds, instead, are crucial to understand how our Planet works at
great depths thanks to the mineral inclusions still trapped inside them
 Depth of
crystallization

Thermal volume expansion

1273 K
Inclusion
Inclusion

298 K

Inclusion
CaAl2Si2O8
126 Km depth
Physical 0.5 mm
properties
Pressure, GPa
 Single-crystal Prototype instrument
Diamond
X-ray diffraction detector

ERC STARTING
GRANT
INDIMEDEA
N. 307322

X-ray Microsource CaAl2Si2O8

Rigaku-Oxford Diffraction 0.5 mm

SuperNova with 200K Pilatus
ERC STARTING
GRANT
INDIMEDEA
N. 307322

0.06 mm
5 mm

Ringwoodite, Mg2SiO4, containing  1.5 H2O

This mineral is stable only between 525 and 660 km depth!
Pearson, Brenker, Nestola et al. 2014 (Nature, 507, 221-224)
ERC STARTING Such discovery allows us to calculate that the “real” global Earth
GRANT
INDIMEDEA water content is probably 3 to 4 times the previous estimates
N. 307322

A possible
model
relatively
to the
deep-water
cycle
Pearson, Brenker,
Nestola et al. 2014
(Nature, 507, 221-224)
ERC STARTING
GRANT Future research challenges….
INDIMEDEA
N. 307322
1) Are there further hydrous super-deep minerals in diamonds…??
Reply…: be careful to the so-called Phase EGG, AlSiO3(OH)!!

2) How fast is diamond travelling through the Earth…?

Reply…: which is the transformation kinetics of ringwoodite to
olivine? Does the discovery of ringwoodite in diamond mean that
diamond only takes some hours to travel through 500 km of
Earth???
 Deep Earth dynamics:
What is happening beneath our feet?

Speaker: Eleonora Rivalta

Institution: GFZ German Centre for Geosciences
Session Organiser: Claudia Jesus Rydin
Focus: Mechanics of magma propagation

and geophysical observables

Rivalta et al., 2015

ERC Project POMPEI: Physics Of Magma Propagation

Career path

Master, PhD Post-doc Lecturer ERC

Motivation of studying dikes:
Crevasses
(after Kuipers Munnecke et al., 2014)
Understanding the dynamics of our planet Earth...
Motivation -ofHydraulic
studyingfracturing
dikes: Georesources
-- Diamond-bearing
Gas and oil kimberlite
storage in the
- Dikes and sills common in crust
mining environments

Rutqvist et al JPSE 2013

TWAD board
Motivation of studying dikes: ... and of other terrestrial planets
Venus
(after Ernst et al., 2003)
Mercury
(after Krassilnikov
Mars
(after Krassilnikov
and Head, 2003) and Head, 2003)
Methods: Analogue laboratory experiments
Methods: Numerical simulations
Watanabe et al., 2002

Maccaferri et al., 2014

Example: Why are volcanoes there were they are?

(Thybo and Nielsen, 2009)

Maccaferri et al., 2014
Nature Geoscience
Perspective: Forecast location of eruption

Smith et al., 2011

Perspective: Forecast location of eruption
(IMO)

Smith et al., 2011