UCLA

Earth’s evolution and structure depends heavily on the composition of its interior and the processes occurring deep within. The main objective of this thesis is to better understand the nature of the core-mantle boundary, which not only provides insight for the Earth’s interior, but can also be related to other planetary body interiors as well. At the core-mantle boundary, two major planet forming materials (rock and metal) are juxtaposed at high temperatures where the interaction of the materials may occur. Characterizing this interaction requires investigating any chemical reactions that may occur and the possible transport of heat and mass between these two regions. The behavior of this boundary layer can be directly related to understanding deep Earth dynamics, including the origin of the early dynamo, observed seismic structures in the deep mantle, and the redox chemistry of Earth. The work in this thesis outline the different aspects of my Ph.D. projects that work to investigate the nature of the core-mantle boundary. This not only includes the possible interaction of existing mantle and core, but also the behavior of materials introduced to this region by tectonic activity originating from the Earth’s surface such as H2O, and the interaction of this other important planetary component (ice) with rock and metal. I apply first principles molecular dynamics to investigate the chemical reactions of rock and metal materials in the Earth’s mantle. I also investigate the material properties of two FeOOH polymorphs, ε-FeOOH and pyrite-structured FeOOH, using first principles static simulations that perform ground state calculations to determine phase stability, elasticity, and phonon vibrational frequencies.