Lena Noack

PS Planetary and Solar System Sciences

The 2010 Young Scientist Outstanding Poster Paper (YSOPP) Award is awarded to Lena Noack for the poster/PICO entitled:

CIDGA – Coupling of Interior Dynamic models with Global Atmosphere models (Noack, L.; Plesa, A.-C.; Breuer, D.)

Click here to download the poster/PICO file.

Lena Noack started her PhD studies 2008 at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany, in cooperation with the German Aerospace Center (DLR) at the Institute of Planetary Research in Berlin. Her supervisors are Tilman Spohn and Doris Breuer. She studies in her PhD the mechanism of renewing the surface of a terrestrial body and its implications for the habitability of a planet. Her research is focused on the existence of plate tectonics and in particular on the probability of plate tectonics on Super-Earths, as well as on a reasonable explanation for the young resurfacing on Venus. For this, she developed a 1D atmosphere module called CIDGA that she coupled with the 2D/3D mantle convection code GAIA. As shown on her poster, the coupling of the interior mantle dynamics with the atmosphere suggests that high surface temperatures in the past could have resulted in ductile flow at the surface and local resurfacing on Venus. The relatively young surface of Venus might thus be explained by a local surface recycling mechanism not consistent to plate tectonics, which would rather need a cold and stiff surface.