Geoverse

Today I had my first real hands on approach on the experimental work I’ll be doing this year. I cold pressed synthetic iron bearing olivine powder into 5 pellets for sintering in the oven at 1400C overnight so that they become one sample of about 3cm long. On wednesday I will be hot pressing that in other machine to create the final sample which I will be doing preliminary experments on in the wave attenuation machine at pressures up to 200MPa and temps of 1300C.

The last few weeks I have familiarised myself with the various machines i’ll be using. I have witnessed the whole procedure of reassembling the attenuation machine and it’s usage for calibration and proper alignment of the capacitor plates that determine the amount of torsion is produced in the machine by two bottom driver coils. This torsion can be linked to the amount of strain that is produced by shearing the sample in relation to an elastic standard of which the shear modulus and the internal friction 1/Q are known. The tangent of the phase angle that is made with the elastic standard and the sample gives the internal friction of the sample. Likewise the shear modulus can be calculated from two-way wave speeds at different frequencies through the sample (and elastic standard). These values and especially 1/Q, which denotes the wave attenuation in the sample are useful in this experimental project. Ultimately, I will have various samples, pre-deformed with varying dislocation densities (or crystal defects) as sythetic polycrystalline ‘upper mantle material’ and possibly olivine single crystals. These will show different responses to seismic wave attenuation and my goal is to find out to what degree and quantify this relationship and model it for tomographic upper mantle imaging.

This project falls into place in a bigger picture where seismic wave speeds are not only thought to attenuate by dislocation densities but also by:
-Frequency
-Temperature
-Grain size
-Melt fraction
-Chemical composition
-water (<- still needs to be investigated)

The importance of this endeavor lies in the still unresolved phenomenon of the low wavespeed zone in the upper mantle. Whereas previously it has been thought to be caused by widespread melting, it may now seem that dislocations play a large role in dampening the seismic waves instead.

Here are some laboratory pics:

Green machine for hot pressing

Interface for the attenuation machine

Attenuation machine

Laboratory

My office

My workspace (im getting a new desk soonish)

Entrance to main building RSES

More photos: here

Today I bought a mobile phone (yes really! ). It’s the Nokia 5140i. My provider is Vodafone. Below is a picture of the model . It’s not the latest and greatest but it’s good enough for me. Just a simple camera and stereo radio in it. A phone is supposed to do what what it’s meant to do, i.e. allow you to phone someone. I got a pre-pay one because the way I see it, I wont be using it that much. What I really like about it though is that it goes 300 hours in standby and 5 hours when using it. That’s pretty good. It’s also water and shock proof. There is a compas on it, a torch and things like a calculator, internet/mail and whatnot. Unfortunately it has infrared and not bluetooth. My laptop has just the opposite! I’ll have to get a cable tomorrow… If you want to know my number, email me (see website geoverse, contact) because I’m a bit hesitant to put it here. Though for you people in the Netherlands you probably want to hook up with me via skype cuz that’s free! Btw I love it that the shops are open on Sunday! Nice…

We had a heavy thunderstorm last night with hail stones up to the size of golfballs! The thunder was really loud and there was a massive downpour. I think it lasted about half an hour. I took some pics afterwards which you can view in a gallery. See link below.

Thunderstorm pics

News link

G’day,

Today I got the first deposit of money on my bank account! Woohoo! It’s the reimbursement from flight and baggage relocation costs. I’m still going to try and get a (partial) reimbursement of the rent I had to pay to hold my room before coming to Canberra. Life’s pretty good here. Always something going on at work or at home with my housemates.

At work for instance I recently got hold of an awesome computer with dual xeon processors and two monitors, just because it was lying around collecting dust. It was pretty funny when they asked me what I wanted: a pc or a mac. BUT i didnt fall for the evil temptation of choosing a mac because frankly nobody cares about a mac ;-).

Besides that I’m rebuilding the attenuation apparatus i’ll be using together with my supervisor Prof. Jackson and a technician at the lab. We’ll be done tomorrow hopefully. The lab itself isnt that big but when you walk further into the next door buildings what you see is laboratory/workshop heaven! A wideknown fact is that the SHRIMP electron probing devices are actually all build here. YES! Right here at ANU. Sweet as! Anyway, I had a little tour through all the workplaces. I was pleasantly amused with all the stuff they have here. It belittles the HPT lab at Utrecht completely ha ha.

I’m going out with some mates for a steak tonight. There is a really cheap place in Dickson where on mondays and tuesdays you can get a steak and you grill it yourself on the barbie. Plus you get some chips and salad too. Awesome!

Cheers