****************************************************************************************** Two PhD positions available at Volcanic Risk Solutions Group, New Zealand From: "Gert Lube" <G.Lube@xxxxxxxxxxxx> ****************************************************************************************** Two fully funded PhD positions are available and currently open for applications at the Volcanic Risk Solutions Group of Massey University, New Zealand. We would like to invite applicants with a strong research interest in geological and environmental flow processes from the fields of Earth Sciences, Geophysics, Chemical Engineering or a related subject. 1. Exploding the pyroclastic flow enigma with life-scalable experiments. Pyroclastic density currents (PDCs) are common and deadly hazards from volcanoes. They comprise swiftly flowing, hot mixtures of gas and volcanic particles that destroy everything in their path. The violence of the flows makes all means of direct internal measurement impossible, resulting in a poor understanding of their physics and their dynamic properties. As part of a multidisciplinary research team, the successful applicant will conduct the world's first experiments scaled to the dynamic conditions within natural channelized PDCs. Large-volume, ground-hugging and partially hot flows of up to 5 m3 of natural volcanic materials will be generated in the experiments. An array of geophysical sensors will capture the internal properties of these PDC-analogues, resulting in a new fundamental understanding of their physics. These data will be built into testable mathematical relationships describing the internal structures and modes of gas-particle interaction in PDCs, addressing a long-standing argument in volcanology and opening a path toward reliable hazard forecasting. This PhD project is a joint initiative of Massey University (New Zealand); University of Hamburg (Germany); Leibniz Institute IFM-Geomar (Germany) and University at Buffalo and it is funded by a Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Grant. 2. Investigating the imbalanced world of erosion and deposition in volcanic sediment-water flows. We invite applications for a multidisciplinary project investigating the hitherto poorly understood processes of erosion and deposition in volcanic sediment-water flows. The research will integrate direct measurements obtained from actively flowing lahars in New Zealand and Indonesia and experimental data from scaled, laboratory sediment-water flows. In contrast to the traditional view of granular flows in a perfectly equilibrated state, the research will systematically explore the transition-causing force imbalances in variably accelerated flow regimes. The results of this research will be used to explain the detailed mechanisms behind the transitions and to help establish general-purpose, constitutive laws for the modelling of erosion and deposition processes in large and dangerous natural hazards. This PhD project is a joint initiative of Volcanic Risk Solutions and School of Engineering and Advanced Technology at Massey University (New Zealand) and University of Cambridge (United Kingdom) and it is funded by a Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Grant. For further information visit the Volcanic Risk Solutions web-site http://volcanic.massey.ac.nz/news.html or contact Shane Cronin (s.j.cronin_at_massey.ac.nz) and Gert Lube (g.lube_at_massey.ac.nz). Please include with your application a covering letter explaining your research interests and a full CV. Dr. Gert Lube Volcanic Risk Solutions - Soil & Earth Sciences Institute of Natural Resources (PN432) Massey University Private Bag 11 222 Palmerston North New Zealand Ph: +64 6-3569099 x 2890 Fax: +64 6-3505632 ============================================================== To unsubscribe from the volcano list, send the message: signoff volcano to: listserv@xxxxxxx, or write to: volcano-request@xxxxxxxx To contribute to the volcano list, send your message to: volcano@xxxxxxxx Please do not send attachments. ==============================================================
