Ahrens pioneered the academic use of shock waves to study minerals under high temperature and pressure, providing fundamental geological information about Earth's core.
December 10, 2010
Thomas J. Ahrens, a Caltech geophysicist who pioneered the academic use of shock waves to study minerals under high temperatures and pressures such as those found at the center of the Earth, died Nov. 24 at his home in Pasadena. He was 74. The cause of death was not revealed.
Today, physicists have several ways to look at materials under high pressures and temperatures. Diamond anvils can be used to exert very high pressures on minerals, and lasers are used to heat them to extreme temperatures. Modern computers can be used to calculate properties directly.
But when Ahrens started his work half a century ago, according to his Caltech colleague Paul Asimow, the only way to obtain the necessary conditions was by slamming two things together. "When he started, it was the only way to obtain information about the deep Earth and to produce a sensible model of the deep Earth," Asimow said.
Government labs here and abroad were doing such studies for nuclear weapons testing, but Ahrens was among the first to do it in an academic setting to provide fundamental geological information about the Earth's core.
<SNIP>
View entire article here: http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-tom-ahrens-20101210,0,7633271.story
Check out http://groups.yahoo.com/group/californiadisasters/
Read our blog at http://eclecticarcania.blogspot.com/
Visit me on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/derkimster
Visit my Myspace at http://www.myspace.com/kimusinteruptus
__._,_.___
No comments:
Post a Comment