Understanding the Deep Earth

Online Workshop

This post was edited by Glenn Richard on Feb, 2010
What are the big science ideas related to COMPRES research that we would like to bring to the educational community?

What do we want students to know about the technology that the COMPRES community uses to do this science?

What educational resources can we create and/or make available for teaching about COMPRES science ideas, equipment, techniques, and facilities?

Initial thought. It would be nice to have a good animation showing part of the latice of a lower-pressure phase as it transforms into a higher-pressure phase, as might occur in a subducting slab. Of course, it would be particularly nice to have such animations for all of the important pressure-induced phase changes relevant to mantle processes.

Given a visual image, a student might wonder (1) why we think we know that this change happens, and (2) how we can study the properties of high-pressure phases in labs that are on Earth's (low-pressure) exterior.

Given an idea about the process being studied, and having developed curiosity about the process, my guess is that a student would then be receptive to learning about high-PT investigations.

Vince, that's a nice idea for a feature that can be included in a virtual lab tour, especially one involving a virtual high pressure experiment. If anyone knows of a good source for this type of animation, please let us know; I might use it.