This award provides funds to equip a new shock-wave research facility to be installed in the Department of Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago. Equipment covered by this award includes high-speed digital counters, pulse generators, high-speed streak camera, pulsed xenon strobe, and an oscilloscope. The facility will be used in studies of the physical properties of crystalline and amorphous silicate materials under the pressure and temperature range of the Earth's mantle. In particular, the first application will be to determine the systematic dependence of the equation of state of silicate liquids on their chemical composition. Such data are crucial to an understanding of the buoyancy of melts in the deep interior and the differentiation of the Earth via magmatic processes during its history.
