Viktoria Trautner

I have recently completed my PhD, combining experimental mineral physics and computational seismology to study the iron spin crossover in (Mg,Fe)O ferropericlase, under the supervision of Hauke Marquardt and Paula Koelemeijer. 

Ferropericlase is the second most abundant mineral in Earth’s deep interior after Bridgmanite. The extremely high pressures in the lower mantle cause a change in the electronic configuration of iron ions in ferropericlase. At the temperature conditions of the lower mantle, this spin crossover extends over depths of hundreds of kilometers and has profound effects on mineral properties. The primary aims of my PhD project were to map out the spin crossover in ferropericlase in temperature-pressure-composition space, and to resolve its effects on mantle physical properties and geophysical observables, such as seismic wave velocities. To do this, I used diamond-anvil cells to conduct experiments at pressures and temperatures of the lower mantle, coupled with x-ray diffraction measurements at large-scale synchrotron facilities. I collaborated with an interdisciplinary networks of seismologists, geodynamicists and theoretical mineral physicists to incorporate the experimental results in seismic velocity models. I then investigated the seismic signal of the spin crossover in travel-time data using seismic wave propagation simulations. In addition, I used machine learning techniques to infer the pressure-composition dependence of the elastic properties of ferropericlase from experimental data.

I now continue to use high-pressure/high-temperature experimental techniques to study mineral properties in Earth’s deep interior as a postdoctoral researcher.

My work is funded by the ERC, as part of the DEEP-MAPS project led by Hauke Marquardt.

Before coming to Oxford in January 2021, I completed my BSc and two-year research MSc in Earth Sciences at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. During my BSc research project, I worked on trace element partitioning in reducing planetary bodies like Mercury using piston-cylinder press experiments. For my Master’s, also in the field of experimental petrology, I modelled partial melting of mixed Lunar Magma Ocean cumulates to place constraints on the formation of lunar high-Ti magmas. My second MSc research project was on fluid-rock interaction in metabasites of the Cycladic Blueschist Unit on Syros (Greece) and involved measuring the gas composition and d18O and d2H stable isotope ratios in fluid inclusions of metamorphic quartz veins.

Please feel free to get in touch, if there’s anything you would like to ask me!