Research

Primordial differentiation of Earth and other planets

During the formation of Earth and other planets they experienced collisions with bodies of planetary size, which resulted in extensive melting of planetary interiors. We study melting, crystallization, and differentiation of the planets during their early history and how these early processes affect the subsequent planetary evolution and produce the planets that we observe today.

Evolution of impact-induced magma oceans on Mars (modified from Reese and Solomatov, 2007)

Origin of plate tectonics

Why does Earth have plate tectonics? There are various approaches to addressing this problem. One approach is to investigate the conditions necessary for the lithospheric failure to occur on a planet where, initially, plate tectonics is absent and mantle convection occurs beneath the lithosphere.

Incipient subduction caused by lithospheric failure on a virtual 2D planet (modified from Wong and Solomatov, 2016). The lithospheric failure manifests itself in the formation of a spreading center which is equivalent to a mid-ocean ridge on Earth (near the center of the box).

Convection in fluids with complex rheologies

What are the conditions for convection to occur in the interior of a planet? What forms do the convective motions take and how do they affect the evolution of planetary interiors? While we have some answers to these questions, the fluid dynamics of rheologically complex fluids, such as rocks and ice, is still poorly understood.

Localized convection is an example of unusual phenomenons that can occur in fluids with strongly temperature-dependent viscosity (modified from Solomatov and Jain, 2021). Note that the layer is heated uniformly from below. The “usual” response of a fluid layer to uniform heating is the formation of convective cells throughout the entire layer.
Evolution of chemical heterogeneities in a convective mantle with grain-size-dependent viscosity (modified from Solomatov and Reese, 2008).

Microstructural evolution of rocks

Convection in planetary interiors depends on the rheology of planetary materials which, in turn, is sensitive to the mineral grain size. We study processes that govern the grain size, such as grain growth and phase transformations.

Ostwald ripening in two-phase systems (modified from Solomatov, El-Khozandar and Tikare, 2002).

Computational tools

Most of our numerical simulations are conducted on computer clusters such the one shown below.