All volcanoes on earth are driven by the degassing of volatile elements, mostly H2O and CO2 from their host magma. To model the degassing process, one needs to know the solubility laws of these volatile. To that end, petrologists have been performing high-pressure high-temperature experiments for sixty years to determine how much water and CO2 dissolves in magma as a function of Pressure, Temperature, Melt composition (12 oxides) and oxidation state. To model how these fifteen parameters affect solubility laws petrologist have then relied on empirical interpolation between experimental data points and some extrapolations using classical thermodynamic theory to infer the expected behavior beyond experimental calibration.

I aggregated the last sixty years of experimental results into a single database. From this database it should be possible to:

1.Develop an algorithm which, based on the magma composition, pressure and temperature of interest will itself determine the solubility law based on weighting the experimental data on their proximity to the conditions of interest.  

2.To determine the next set of experiments to perform in order to have the most impact on improving parametrization over the entire dataset.

Achieving this it would make a significant and long-lasting impact in the field of volcanology/petrology

This project is eligible for a matching fund stipend from the Data Science Institute. This is not a guarantee of payment, and the total amount is subject to available funding.

Faculty Advisor

  • Professor: Yves Moussallam
  • Center/Lab: Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
  • Location: Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

Project Timeline

  • Earliest starting date: 9/30/21
  • End date:

Candidate requirements

  • Skill sets: Scientific computing (Matlab and/or Python and/or R), Bayesian statistics
  • Student eligibility: freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, master’s
  • International students on F1 or J1 visa: eligible
  • Academic Credit Possible: Yes