Congratulations to Dr Tetsuya Komabayashi who has been awarded a five-year ERC Consolidator Grant entitled "Exploring Thermodynamic Properties of Earth's Core-Forming Materials"

The goal of this project is to identify the thermodynamic state of the Earth's central core, which will provide critical information about the origin and evolution of the solid Earth.

The research will recreate the Earth's core conditions at more than 135 gigapascals and 5000 kelvin in a diamond anvil cell and establish a thermodynamic model for the core. By combining the experimental data with thermodynamic calculations, the project will try to solve a sixty-year-old question, "what elements are in the core in addition to iron?"