Luca Menegon received funding for the project: “Conditions for earthquake nucleation in the lower crust”. The primary objective is to determine the state of stress of seismic faults in the lower crust. Menegon and his group propose to achieve this goal using cutting-edge, novel microanalytical techniques on samples of single-rupture seismogenic faults exhumed from the lower crust to measure the residual stress retained in mineral grains subjected to earthquakes. Measurements will be coupled to numerical models of stress distribution in lower-crustal fault systems. This research project involves researchers from geosciences and physics.
John Aiken received Fripro funding for the mobility project “SerRateAl: The rate and mechanisms of active serpentinization of peridodites from the Semail ophiolite in Oman”. Aiken's project aims to understand and detecting this process in natural environments is important for estimating serpentinization rates. SerpRateAI aims to both constrain and explain serpentinization rates using dozens of terabytes of data collected in the Oman Drilling Program Multi-Borehole Observatory, in a region undergoing active serpentinization.
Olivier Galland received funding for the project "Beyond Elasticity - How inelastic properties of crustal rocks control the propagation of dykes and sills in volcanic plumbing systems". This is a cross-disciplinary research project, which involves researchers from geosciences, physics and mathematics at UiO as well as international collaborators at the Universities of Iceland and Uppsala. The primary objective of this project is to show that, and quantify how much, inelastic deformation contributes to dyke and sill propagation and emplacement in volcanic plumbing systems. The project aims at deeply revisiting our understanding of the propagation mechanisms of magmatic sheet intrusions (dykes, sills and cone sheets), which are the most fundamental magma pathways through the Earth's crust.
This year, the success rate to projects at the Research Council of Norway was very low (5.3%), and over the 1539 applications submitted in the country, only 25% obtained a high grade of 6 or 7, qualifying them for funding. At the Njord Centre, over the eight applications submitted this year, 75% obtained a high grade, and three received funded. Collectively this is an important achievement for the centre to reach the goal to become a world-leading cross-disciplinary geoscience-physics research environment.