Mineralogical and Petrological Processes
A key to understanding the processes operating in the outer part of the Earth is to look at the rock exhumed to the Earth's surface.
If properly interpreted, fabrics and microstructures in these rocks provide fundamental constraints on lithospheric evolution.
Mineral reactions and phase transformations are responsible for first order changes in physical properties of solids such as chemical composition, density, seismic velocities and strength. The aim of a mineralogist and a petrologist is to develop forward or inverse modelling tools to explain and quantify the direct observations of such transitions in natural samples. Such petrological observations yield important insights into how the lithosphere could have evolved from days up to million-years timescales.
Our research projects couple field work, laboratory-based measurements and thermodynamic and numerical modeling in order to provide quantitative and physically-based tools for interpreting common microstructures in rocks. The laboratory-based work involves application of high resolution material science analytical devices which help us to reveal the three-dimensional size, shape and distribution of microstructural features down to the nanometre-scale. The quantification of the processes is focused on phase equilibria modelling and description through chemical potential relationships which control the mass transfer in rocks as well as on advanced modelling of the interplay between mineral reactions and deformation. Our group benefits from a broad collaboration with national and international institutions.
The Mineralogical and Petrological Processes group is led by Lucie Tajcmanova
Interested? Let's explore the future of metamorphic geology 
https://youtu.be/6aEmxPCzg8A?t=119
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Lucie Tajcmanova
Head of Research Group
Im Neuenheimer Feld 236
69120 Heidelberg
Phone: +49 6221 54-6080
E-Mail: Lucie.Tajcmanova@geow.uni-heidelberg.de
