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Investigating Mantle Flow Through Analyses of Earthquake Wave Propagation

Earth and Planetary Sciences researchers at Yale use Yale’s "Grace" supercomputer to study subduction systems, combining seismic data and geodynamic models to better understand how subduction works.

A recent study by Jonathan Wolf and Maureen Long uses earthquake waves and high-performance computing to analyze material flow deep in Earth's mantle, near the outer core boundary, around 3,000 km below the surface. Researchers found ancient slabs drive flow beneath the northeastern Pacific and detected upward flow at the Yellowstone plume. They also discovered that mysterious mantle features called ultralow velocity zones (ULVZs) can be moved by mantle flow, especially under the Himalayas. These findings link deep mantle dynamics to surface events like plate tectonics, volcanism, and Earth's magnetic field.

Maureen Long and Jonathan Wolf
Maureen Long : Bruce D. Alexander '65 Professor and Chair of Earth & Planetary Sciences

Research projects

The US ATLAS Northeast Tier 2 Center
Yale Budget Lab
Volcanic Eruptions Impact on Stratospheric Chemistry & Ozone
Towards a Whole Brain Cellular Atlas
Tornado Path Detection
The Kempner Institute - Unlocking Intelligence
The Institute for Experiential AI
Taming the Energy Appetite of AI Models
Surface Behavior
Studying Highly Efficient Biological Solar Energy Systems
Software for Unreliable Quantum Computers
Simulating Large Biomolecular Assemblies
Revolutionizing Materials Design with Computational Modeling
Quantum Computing in Renewable Energy Development
Pulling Back the Quantum Curtain on ‘Weyl Fermions’
New Insights on Binary Black Holes
Network Attached FPGAs in the OCT
Monte Carlo eXtreme (MCX) - a Physically-Accurate Photon Simulator
Modeling Hydrogels and Elastomers
Modeling Breast Cancer Spread
Impact of Marine Heatwaves on Coral Diversity
IceCube: Hunting Neutrinos
Global Consequences of Warming-Induced Arctic River Changes
Exact Gravitational Lensing by Rotating Black Holes
Evolution of Viral Infectious Disease
Evaluating Health Benefits of Stricter US Air Quality Standards
Ephemeral Stream Water Contributions to US Drainage Networks
Electron Heating in Kinetic-Alfvén-Wave Turbulence
Discovering Evolution’s Master Switches
Dexterous Robotic Hands
Developing Advanced Materials for a Sustainable Energy Future
Detecting Protein Concentrations in Assays
Denser Environments Cultivate Larger Galaxies
Deciphering Alzheimer's Disease
Dancing Frog Genomes
Asteroid Data Mining
Analyzing the Gut Microbiome
Adaptive Deep Learning Systems Towards Edge Intelligence
Accelerating Rendering Power
Computation + Machine Intelligence | Wu Tsai Institute
Computational Modeling of Biological Systems
Social Capital and Economic Mobility
MIT Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Building for Floods
Better Pathogen Targeting
Tracking Environmental Health Risks
AI for Cancer Diagnosis
Microplastic-Free by Design
Supporting Data-intensive Social Science
Sailing the Symbiosis Seascape
Wrangle Range Modeling
Shining a Light on Dark Matter
Grid Responsive Data Centers
Multifunctional 3D-Printed Materials
AI Pareidolia
Computing Hidden Health Threats from Heat
Staving off the Banana Apocalypse
CRISPR Mice, Smarter Science
Naval and Ocean Renewable Energy Hydrodynamics
AI That Speaks Human About Health
A Safer Way to See Inside Cells
How Monkeys - and Machines - See in 3D
FlowER: AI for Predicting Chemical Reactions
Supercomputers Reveal Ancient Atmospheric Battle
OSN - Open Storage Network
Massachusetts AI Hub
MGHPCC AI Computing Resource (AICR)
YARD: A Curation Workflow Tool
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