Nationality: Italian
CREEP host institution: FAST (CNRS/University Paris-Sud), France
Background: I got a Master Degree in Geology and Technical Geology at University of Padova (Italy). My Master thesis was entitled “Geobarometry of diamonds from Vooerspoed mine (South Africa): analysis of peridotitic and eclogitic inclusions”. In detail, I have investigated four diamonds including different types of mineral inclusions (i.e. diopside, eclogitic garnet, kyanite, enstatite) and, thanks to the application of the recent experimental approach relative to the elastic geobarometry, I was able to determine the pressure of formation of some of these diamonds. Beyond the thesis project, I have focused my studies in mineral physics and in numerical models on elastic deformation and rheology of geological bodies using MatLab.
Research interest: I am interested in many fields of Earth science. Although my background is focused mainly on general geology (such as mineralogy, petrology etc.) I am always been interested in big scale phenomena. I would like to focus my studies on internal Earth dynamic by combining geophysical data, laboratory experiments and numerical simulations.
CREEP project: The aim of my Ph.D. project is to investigate the influence of rheology on the nature and morphology of intrusions in a deformable matrix. The expected results are a better understanding of the processes allowing for strain localization and for the development of intrusions in a crustal reservoir or in a planetary lithosphere. To do this, the physics of the phenomena will be studied through laboratory experiments using polymer gels and colloids. Regime diagrams and scaling laws derived from the experiments will be compared to full numerical simulations.
Supervisors: Anne Davaille1, Neil Ribe1, Paul Tackley2.
1 FAST (CNRS/University Paris-Sud), France.
2 Department of Earth Sciences, ETH Zurich, Switzerland.
