Marissa Lo

GMPV Geochemistry, Mineralogy, Petrology & Volcanology

The 2021 Virtual Outstanding Student and PhD candidate Presentation (vOSPP) Award is awarded to Marissa Lo for the poster/PICO entitled:

Modelling the ascent of picritic lunar magmas (Lo, M.; La Spina, G.; Joy, K.; Polacci, M.; Burton, M.)

Click here to download the poster/PICO file.

Marissa Lo is a PhD student in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Manchester, UK.

Her PhD research focusses on lunar volcanism, in particular, investigating the abundance and role of different volatile species in driving lunar magma ascent and eruption. In her vEGU 2021 talk “Modelling the ascent of picritic lunar magmas”, Marissa presented results from this ongoing research. The main method behind this piece of work is applying a terrestrial magma ascent model to lunar scenarios. Using the magma ascent model and a sensitivity analysis, various eruption conditions (such as mass eruption rate) and the relative significance of different parameters (such as temperature and pressure) were calculated. This area of research has important implications for understanding lunar volcanic eruptions, the internal composition and properties of the lunar mantle, and the thermal history of the Moon.