This award provides partial (50%) funding to acquire a high- temperature deformation system with a servo-controlled actuator. The apparatus will be installed and operated in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Minnesota. The University is committed to providing the remaining 50% of the acquisition cost for this equipment. The equipment will be incorporated in a new mineral and rock deformation laboratory at the University of Minnesota. Fundamental materials science studies on ductile deformation and deformation microstructures of rocks and minerals will be studied. Specific subjects of research will include the plastic flow properties of dense oxides of the mantle, including perovskites and garnets and the very low strain transient creep in olivines and perovskite. Such experiments serve to provide laboratory analogs to plastic flow of the Earth's mantle.
