The overall goal of this project is to better understand, and eventually to be able to predict, the thermodynamic and transport properties that ultimately control complex geological processes involving crystalline, glassy and molten silicate materials. The approach taken in the proposed research is to identify important problems where critical details of short- to intermediate-range structure are needed and can be elucidated by spectroscopy, make accurate measurements in appropriately simplified systems, and determine the consequences of the results for fundamental parameters such as configurational entropy, free energy, component activities, diffusivity, and viscosity. The primary research tool will continue to be solid-state Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), which is particularly useful for measuring the extent and nature of disorder and dynamics in silicates and oxides. This research will be a critical part of the scientific training of several Ph.D. students, and has close ties to other fields such as materials science, physical chemistry, and the physics of disordered systems.
