A reflection from an NLT geophysicist.
Numerical models are based on the fundamental laws of science, which are universal and applicable to many fields — especially geophysics. As a geophysicist interested in predictive applications of near-surface geohazard modeling, I'm familiar with solving problems using the equations that govern how waves move through a medium, such as seismic waves traveling through the Earth's lithosphere. Models are built upon equations broken down from scientific laws (conservation, mechanics, gravity, and many others) so they can simulate the way our Earth and universe actually work. Because these laws are universal, they can be linked across very different fields of science. For example, the laws of conservation of energy, mass, and momentum can form the equations that model a tsunami wave propagating across the Pacific Ocean — and the same laws might be used (with different conditions, assumptions, and variables) to model a pressure wave moving through a rock sample in the core of a Super-Earth.
The Carnegie Geophysical Lab hosts a weekly seminar series, free and open to the public on Mondays at 11:00 AM, featuring a different speaker each week — a great opportunity to hear some of the world's top scientists discuss work at the forefront of geophysics research. I attended a talk by a Princeton University geophysicist titled "From Super-Earth interiors to our own Earth's surface, using dynamic compression to study our universe," and wanted to share a bit of what I learned about the crossover of fundamental scientific laws within the wide field of geophysical modeling.
The speaker's research is in a rapidly growing field of geophysics called dynamic compression — a frontier for studying high-pressure mineral physics. This work is impactful for geophysicists who study high-pressure environments and want to understand the mantle/core dynamics of the Earth. Dynamic compression allows scientists to study the pressure-density behavior of certain minerals in environments extremely difficult to replicate, like the core of the Earth or a Super-Earth, where temperatures and pressures are unimaginably high. It involves concentrating extremely powerful laser pulses onto a very small (hundreds-of-micrometer-scale) portion of a mineral sample and then measuring how the shock wave of pressure moves through it. The results indicate the importance of understanding a planet's chemical makeup before accurately modeling its interior. In the future, these studies will help scientists better understand planet-forming impacts, meteorite impacts and crater properties, and the pressure/temperature environment at the core of a super planet.
For me — a geophysicist more focused on near-surface modeling — an interesting takeaway was that the speaker's pressure-response models are based on the same fundamental conservation of mass, momentum, and energy equations used in hydrologic modeling (tsunamis, water flow, flooding) and seismic wave modeling (earthquakes, explosions). Though the equations in a hydrologic model and in a pressure-response model wouldn't look very similar, they're based on the same fundamental laws. This makes sense if you imagine that shock waves would be governed by the same physical principles as other kinds of waves, like water and seismic. While this may seem obvious to some, it's something scientists often overlook as we home in on the fine points of our respective fields.
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