9627891 Olson The PI proposes to conduct laboratory fluid dynamics experiments with applications to flow in the Earth's mantle and core. The PI will study experimentally the convective processes responsible for the seismic anisotropy that has been detected in the upper mantle and in the inner core, and will also investigate thermochemical convection in liquid metal subject to the influences of rotation and magnetic fields, with application to the geodynamo. The experimental results will be compared with both numerical calculations of magnetoconvection and with the flow patterns in the outer core. Measurements of the elastic and electrical anisotropy of solid gallium crystallizing in the presence of convection, rotation and magnetic fields will be compared with observations of inner core anisotropy as a test of theories for the growth of the inner core. ***
