The accurate modelling of geophysical flows often requires information which is difficult to measure and therefore poorly quantified. For example, it is difficult to estimate the viscosity of lava during a volcanic eruption, or some of the properties of the ice flowing within a glacier. However, when the flow is bounded by a free surface,
Just before the beginning of term, professor Weiwei Zhu from the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences visited us and presented his recent work on Fracture Network connectivity in geological formations. Fractures are ubiquitous in crustal rocks due to the harsh environment of the deep subsurface and the inherent brittleness
Jason Furtney was a student at the Institute in the early 2000s, after studying geology at Edinburgh University. Since then, he has been working as a consulting engineer for Itasca International, a geomechanics consulting and software company in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Today, Jason was back in Cambridge and gave a special seminar at the Institute. He
Dr Quentin Kriaa is a new Assistant Professor in Climate and Environmental Fluid Dynamics, and he joined the Institute at the beginning of Easter term. Today, he presented some of his recent research on particle clouds. At a late stage of its accretion, the Earth experienced high-energy planetary impacts. Following each collision, it is estimated
Prof Mahesh Tirumkudulu from the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay has developed a unique method to measure the viscosity of a drop of liquid based on the fluid mechanics of thin films. A drop of liquid is spread over a substrate by contacting a blade with the drop and moving the blade across the
Large lakes tend to be thermally stratified, with a layer of relatively warm water near the surface, and a deeper layer of colder water underneath. The temperature of the surface water fluctuates over the year, while the temperature of the deeper water remains more stable: hence, the thermal stratification is strongest during the summer, when
During the second part of today’s seminar, MPhil student James Sear presented the results of his new experiments on turbulent plumes in a cross-flow. During the last few months, James has been studying what happens when a steady flux of contaminants are released into a river: the contaminants are transported by the current, while being
During the first part of today’s seminar, PhD student Ross Shepherd presented some of his recent work on the injection and storage of CO2 into underground aquifers. Carbon capture and storage will be required as one of many technologies in the global energy transition, and Ross has been studying how to optimise the injection of
Professor Ljiljana Fruk has been studying the design principles and biomedical applications of organic and hybrid nanomaterials. These can be used for real-time detection of senescent cells in the body. Large concentrations of senescent cells in an organ might be a precursor to cancer, and so detecting these cells in the body might help early
The coastal ocean is a highly dynamic and vital biogeochemical mediator between land and sea. Coastal waters frequently experience poor water quality: this is partly due to submarine groundwater discharges, in which polluted water is released at the bottom of the ocean. These discharges are relatively poorly understood, and research is ongoing to characterise them.