Prof. Einat Aharonov

Research Interests:

My group studies coupled physical and chemical processes, that control deformation and evolution of rocks and soils. Most of our studies involve fluid flow in porous media coupled with chemical and mechanical deformation of the matrix. We focus on how relatively small-scale processes (at the pore, grain, or asperity scale) control basic large-scale geological phenomena. Some of the physical processes we study pertain to rapid, often catastrophic, deformation: soil-liquefaction, the physics of friction, and the physics of dry and fluid-induced landslides and earthquakes. Other processes we study occur on geological time scales: coupled brittle - ductile deformation, gas migration through sediments, the creation of pockmarks on the ocean floor, and karst-cave formation. I work at the boundary between physics and geology, using mainly theoretical and numerical tools. To study grain-fluid systems, we have written a unique coupled granular-fluid code. I also use network and other numerical models. 

Ongoing projects:

1. Karst cave formation by cooling of hydrothermal flows.

2. Earthquake physics – with and without fluids. 

3. Seismically-induced soil liquefaction. 

4. Dynamic earthquake triggering. 

5. Ductile-brittle coupling: Fault formation due to lower crustal flow. 

 

Research Methods

Our work is usually constrained by observations: to understand the physics of a system of interest and I collaborate also with field geologists and experimentalists who provide an empirical foundation to the theoretical work.

 

Research Studants 

Pritom Sarma (PhD. Studant)

Rawi Dawood (PhD. Studant)

Daniel Caspi (PhD. Studant)

Contact Information

Einat Aharonov | Room 311 South | 972-2-65-84670 | einatah@mail.huji.ac.il