Planetary science
The department, together with the Natural History Museum, hosts the IARC planetary science group: One of the leading groups worldwide. If you are interested in one of the projects listed below please feel free to contact the associated staff. You can discover more about the IARC group from their website.
Projects
Understanding the Role of Low Pressure Shock Waves on the Fidelity of Magnetic Recording in Rocks and Meteorites [Info Sheet - Micromagnetic Stress]
Supervisors: Professor Adrian Muxworthy and Professor Wyn Williams (University of Edinburgh)
Determining Ancient Field Intensities from Shock Remanent Magnetisations in Rocks and Meteorites [Info Sheet - SRM]
Supervisors: Professor Adrian Muxworthy and Professor Gareth Collins
Recognising Life in Samples Returned from Mars [Info Sheet - Mars Sample Return Life Detector]
Supervisors: Professor Mark A. Sephton, Dr Simon Davis, David Bell (Protium)
The volatile fingerprints of life – a new method to indicate the biological or non-biological sources of gas [Info Sheet - Biotic-Abiotic Gas]
Supervisors: Professor Mark A. Sephton and Professor Craig P. Smalley
Extracting Records of Life on Mars [Info Sheet - Life on Mars]
Supervisors: Professor Mark A. Sephton and Dr Jonathan Watson
Organic Preservation in Jezero Crater – Site of the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover [Info Sheet - Jezero Crater]
Supervisors: Professor Mark A. Sephton and Dr Jonathan Watson
Automated Crater Detection and Classification with Machine Learning [Info Sheet - Automated Crater Detection]
Supervisors: Professor Gareth Collins, Dr Navjot Kukreja (Department of Computer Science, University of Liverpool), Associate Professor Nicholas Warner (Department of Geological Sciences, SUNY Geneseo, USA)
Mixing and volatile depletion of the early solar system [Info sheet]
Supervisor: Professor Mark Rehkämper
MIXING AND VOLATILE DEPLETION IN THE EARLY SOLAR SYSTEM [Info Sheet]
Supervisor: Professor Mark Rehkämper
MICROSPHERULES IN THE GEOLOGICAL RECORD [Info Sheet]
Supervisor: Dr Matthew Genge
Multiscale modeling of compaction of primitive solar system materials [Info Sheet]
Supervisors: Professor Gareth Collins, Dr Tom Davison and Professor Phil Bland (Curtin)
Decoding inner solar system bombardment from impact crater populations [Info sheet]
Supervisor: Professor Gareth Collins
Impact Processing of Planetary Crust [Info Sheet]
Supervisors: Professor Gareth Collins and Dr Mark Wieczorek (IPGP)
Fluid dynamics of magma reservoirs [Info sheet: Fluid dynamics of magma reservoirs]
Professor Matthew Jackson, Dr Pablo Salinas, Dr Haiyang Hu and Professor Jon Blundy (University of Oxford)
Modelling the Giant South Pole-Aitken basin [Info sheet: Modelling the Giant South Pole-Aitken basin]
Supervisors: Professor Gareth Collins
Meteoroid fragmentation in planetary atmospheres and the formation of crater clusters on Earth and Mars [Info sheet: Meteoroid fragmentation]
Supervisors: Professor Gareth Collins