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 ERC CRUSLID



Uncovering the secrets of planetary crust formation

Plate tectonics – the movement of Earth's lithosphere – may have been driven originally by the low density of the planet's continental crust. Studies have revealed that this low density is caused by processes that affected the distribution of material throughout the continents. However, gaps remain in our knowledge regarding the characteristics of the crust on other terrestrial planets and how it formed. In particular, could similar physical processes occur on other planets with no plate tectonics? The EU-funded CRUSLID project aims at determining the present-day nature and structure of the crusts and the physical and geological processes leading to crust formation and evolution on stagnant-lid planets.



The team

PhD Students

Valentin Bonnet Gibet is working on the formation of the Martian crust and the Martian dichotomy.

Alexandra Le Contellec is working on magma ascent below craters in the crust of Venus, Mars and the Moon.

Line Colin is working on the solidification of the lunar magma ocean.

Madison Borrelli is visiting ENS Lyon for 5 months from Arizona State University thanks to a Chateaubriand fellowship. She is working on Venus pancake domes.

Post-docs

Kathryn Dodds is working on the formation of the lunar crust from a slushy magma ocean.

News

Congratulations to Valentin Bonnet Gibet who has been awarded an Outstanding Student Presentation Award by the SEDI Section at the AGU fall meeting 2023 for his presentation on the "Formation of Differentiated Rocks on Mars in Absence of Plate Tectonics".

Publications

Check out the new JGR paper of Valentin Bonnet Gibet on the positive feedback between crustal thickness and melt extraction that may be at the origin of the Martian dichotomy!

In slushy magma oceans, unstable asymmetric growth of planetary stagnant lid may occur because of the large pressure dependence of the mantle rheology. This instability may have given rise to the lunar dichotomy.

Hierarchical cracks on the floor of Martian and Lunar craters may not have the same origin: look at our new EPSL paper on this subject.


Post-doc hiring

Applications are invited for a post-doctoral research scientist to join the ERC project CRUSLID based at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, France. Read more ...