The structure of water and in the way it self-assembles and interacts with dissolved solutes and with hydrophobic surfaces continues to be highly topical. Science ranked the study of water among the top 10 breakthroughs in 2004. The formation and structure of solid state hydrates continues to be a topic of major interest to the pharmaceuticals industry. The problem of interpretation of water structure is complicated by its strong dependence on hydrogen atom positions. Hydrogen atoms cannot be located accurately using X-rays. A meaningful discussion of water structure in the solid state and of its interaction with organic solute species, biological or otherwise, must involve location of H atoms using neutron diffraction. The work must also be backed up by appropriate calculations and corresponding systematic database analysis as well as supporting techniques such as solid state NMR spectroscopy, TGA/DSC and vibrational spectroscopy. This project will amass a body of experimental neutron data on water molecules and clusters within crystals and determine the relative hydrogen bonding energies using calculations based on these experimental coordinates. The key question to answer is what effect does water have on itself and its surroundings and how do water-water interactions compete with water-solute (or, in the solid state, hydrate-host) interactions, particularly in 'large systems' in which many water molecules are present. The insights we will gain will help understand physical properties such as solubility, tendency to form hydrates and the tendency of organic comounds, particularly pharmaceuticals, to adopt more than one solid form.

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.

SENSORS aims to generate new knowledge to underpin the development of new interfacing protocols for nanoscale organic logics. SENSORS relies on supramolecular approach to the design, synthesis and use of solution-processable Supramolecularly Engineered Nanostructured Materials (SENMs) with electronic function, to seek new solutions for solving key interfacing issues of wires and transistors prototypes (molecular-/meso-scale).

This project will address a first-order challenge in volcanology - understanding the controls on transitions in eruption style and intensity during the most hazardous eruptions. Most silicic eruptions begin with a high-energy, high-hazard explosive phase, then either wane and stop, or transition to hybrid and effusive behaviour that produces relatively short-range lava flows with much lower hazard potential. Understanding the timing of these transitions, and of the end of an eruption, is a major challenge that impacts hazard assessment and eruption response. Existing models assume that a transition from explosive to effusive behaviour is driven from below by a change in either the magma ascent rate or by the permeable release of pressurised gas, effectively 'defusing' the explosive potential. However, these bottom-up models fail to explain two fundamental aspects of silicic volcanism: (i) simultaneous explosive-effusive behaviour that was witnessed directly during the 2011-12 eruption of Cordon Caulle (Chile) and subsequently inferred elsewhere, and (ii) widely documented evidence for in-conduit pyroclast sintering preserved in the deposits from all phases of these eruption types. Members of the project team have used this evidence to develop a new paradigm for explosive-effusive transitions in silicic eruptions (Wadsworth et al., 2020) in which transitions are driven from above by shallow welding of fragmented magma and occlusion of the shallow conduit. In this 'cryptic fragmentation' paradigm, all silicic eruptions are explosive at depth, even when apparently effusive at the surface. This new idea demands a wholesale re-evaluation of silicic volcanic systems. Our new model proposes that apparently effusive lava is generated directly from explosive volcanism, assembled by the viscous amalgamation - sintering - of hot volcanic ash and pumice in the volcanic conduit in the shallowest parts of the Earth's crust (see CfS). The cryptic fragmentation model was developed in response to evidence from crystal-poor silicic systems. In this new study we go further, and propose that the model also applies to crystal-rich intermediate systems, which are much more common, and pose a global hazard. This hypothesis is based on abundant evidence from crystal-rich systems, similar to that summarized above. This project will deliver: (1) New analysis of dome-forming and crystal-rich lavas worldwide using existing samples from multiple laboratories. We will constrain the textures in the groundmass - with a focus on pore-textures indicative of sintering petrogenesis - and macro-scale textures associated with breaking and sintering, such as fractures will with partially sintered particles. This new textural work, coupled with analytical and petrophysical measurements, will underpin our extension of the cryptic fragmentation model to crystal-bearing magma systems. (2) A comprehensive suite of new experimental volcanology measurements of sintering rates with multiphase magmatic particles - glass with crystals. Relying on the PI's large body of experimental and theoretical sintering work, we will develop new experimentally-validated models for sintering rates with crystals in systems under elevated pressures, in the presence of magmatic volatiles, and under shear stresses. For the first time, this will push sintering theory to magmatic conditions and allow the first quantitative test of sintering rates at volcanoes. (3) We will apply these sintering rate equations to active crystal-bearing volcanic eruptions of the past at the same sites from which the sample suites were collected, with a focus on Colima volcano (Mexico) via engagement with stakeholders at volcano observatories. Cryptic fragmentation model reference: Wadsworth, F.B., Llewellin, E.W., Vasseur, J., Gardner, J.E. and Tuffen, H., 2020. Explosive-effusive volcanic eruption transitions caused by sintering. Science advances, 6(39), p.eaba7940

Over the past two decades, improving seismic and geodetic data have revealed that many faults accumulate their slip via a suite of phenomena that are not predicted by conventional friction laws: via slow earthquakes, or fault slip events whose average slip rates are between 0.1 microns/s and 1 mm/s, a factor of 1 thousand to 10 million slower than the 1 m/s slip rates typical of earthquakes. Slow earthquakes are now found at most subduction zones, where they accommodate about half of the plate interface slip in the region down-dip of the seismogenic zone. But currently, we do not know which fault zone processes generate the aseismic slip we observe in slow earthquakes. It is important to improve our understanding of slow earthquakes because they occur next to the seismogenic zone. They are capable of triggering large and damaging earthquakes. In this project, we focus on the smallest but most abundant slow earthquakes: tremor. Tremor consists of hundreds to millions of small, closely spaced, slow earthquakes. The earthquakes can be rapidly observed and could be used to track larger-scale aseismic slip variations and to assess whether that slip could trigger hazardous seismic slip. But like other slow earthquakes, tremor remains poorly understood. The goal of this project is to determine which physical process creates tremor and limits its slip rates to around 1 mm/s. Several explanations of tremor's low slip rates have been proposed. It is possible that tremor is governed by the same frictional sliding process that governs normal earthquakes. Tremor may be slow only because the fault's frictional strength or normal stress is low, and thus is unable to drive rapid slip. Alternatively, a more novel physical process could limit tremor's slip speeds. Changes in pore fluid pressure might pull the fault shut, inhibiting rapid slip. Or tremor could be a collection of failed earthquake nucleations, which arise because of stress perturbations on a nominally stable fault. In the proposed work, we will use targeted seismological analysis to assess five proposed models of tremor generation. We will test specific model predictions using high-quality seismic data from some of the best-observed tremor in the world: that near Parkfield, CA. To test our model predictions, we will first examine how tremor is related to shorter and longer slow earthquakes. If tremor is governed by the same novel fault zone physics that governs larger slow earthquakes, there should be a continuum of slow earthquakes with a wide range of sizes and slip rates. The presence or absence of the continuum will be important for constraining the processes governing large and small slow earthquakes, as only a few of the proposed models of large slow earthquakes are consistent with the continuum's wide-ranging slip rates. We will search for 0.05 to 1-second-long events in this continuum using recently developed seismic analysis techniques. And we will examine the clustering of tremor, in order to (1) identify larger, hours-long slow earthquakes potentially within the continuum and (2) to constrain the relationship between tremor and larger-scale slip. Finally, to further test the models, we will move into the details of individual tremor events and probe the evolution of slip in individual tremor earthquakes. We will closely examine the seismic signals produced by tremor in order to determine how tremor's earthquakes' durations, sizes, and complexities vary from event to event. These data will let us determine how much of tremor's properties are controlled by particular rheologies and how much is due to local fault zone structure. By pursuing a suite of features that can test our models, we will be able to determine which physical processes generate the numerous small earthquakes that constitute tremor, so that we may better understand slow earthquake slip and more confidently use tremor to track large-scale slip at depth.