Spieg's  Page

Professor: mspieg@ldeo.columbia.edu

Dept. of Earth and Environmental  Sciences
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
P.O. Box 1000
Palisades, NY 10964
(845) 704 2323 (Skype)

Dept. of Applied Physics and  Applied Mathematics
Columbia University
500 W 120th St
New York, NY 10027
(212) 854 4918


mspieg Mt Washington
 My early enthusiasm for earth sciences was fed by a steady diet of outdoor activities and PBS documentaries. When it became clear that I would not be the next Jacques Cousteau, however, I found that I could combine my tastes for backpacking and physics as a geology/geophysics major. As a Harvard undergraduate, I constructed physical models of mountain-building processes between stints as a U.S. Forest Service ranger, then moved to Cambridge, England, where I conducted my PhD research on magma migration in the mantle with Prof. Dan McKenzie. 

I currently hold a joint appointment between the Departments of Earth and Environmental Sciences (DEES) and  Applied Physics/Applied Mathematics (DAPAM) at Columbia.  My group and I have been extending magma migration theory into a more general one that describes the interactions between solids and fluids in the earth. Magma migration provides an important link between large-scale mantle convection and petrology/geochemistry and my research seeks to close the gap between these two disciplines. This work also lends new insights into other fluid-flow problems such as reactive flow and carbon sequestration; current research includes understanding the fundamental mathematics of coupled fluid/solid problems, applications to magmatism and reactive flow at plate boundaries, and reactive flow in brittle media.    My work is primarily computational and my students, colleagues and I are implementing new techniques and technologies for multi-physics problems that  take advantage of advanced high-performance scientific computing libraries such as  PETSc at Argonne National Labs and the FEniCS project.  This work is in coordination with the magma dynamics component of CIG. With a quantitative basis for fluid-flow research, we hope to integrate this theory with Lamont's strong observational programs in petrology, geochemistry and mantle dynamics.




Selected Publications:

Columbia Magma Dynamics Group

  • Marc Spiegelman (DAPAM/DEES/LDEO)
  • Peter Kelemen (DEES/LDEO)
 Current Post-Docs/Research Scientists
Former Post Docs and students

 
Students



Projects/Other Links:

Some Old Photo Galleries:

A Biased Guide to wining and dining in the Columbia Area


Last modified: 06 October 2009