Anna Gülcher

GD Geodynamics

The 2019 Outstanding Student Poster and PICO (OSPP) Award is awarded to Anna Gülcher for the poster/PICO entitled:

The effects of rheological and tectonic parameters on the preservation of primordial reservoirs in Earth’s lower mantle: a numerical study (Gülcher, A.; Ballmer, M.; Tackley, P.)

Click here to download the poster/PICO file.

Anna Gülcher is a PhD candidate at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zürich, Switzerland), under the supervision of Dr. Maxim Ballmer and Prof. Paul Tackley. Her PhD research focusses on the composition and structure of Earth’s lower mantle, and in particular how compositional heterogeneities affect the evolution of mantle convection. To study this, she aims at putting recent seismic, geochemical and mineral physics discoveries into a coherent geodynamical framework with the use of numerical models.
With her poster at the 2019 EGU General Assembly meeting, Anna explored the control that rheological parameters have on the style of mantle convection and primordial heterogeneity preservation in the Earth’s mantle. Her numerical experiments establish the dependence of primordial heterogeneity preservation on the Rayleigh number and plate yielding strength, and serve as an important basis for future work which includes the integration of numerical models with geophysical constraints.

Publication resulting from the award

Gülcher, A. J. P., Ballmer, M. D., and Tackley, P. J.: Coupled dynamics and evolution of primordial and recycled heterogeneity in Earth's lower mantle, Solid Earth, 12, 2087–2107, https://doi.org/10.5194/se-12-2087-2021, 2021.