Volatiles at Solid Earth Interfaces (VESTER)

Volatiles are a key link between the deep Earth and the habitability of our planet's surface. These volatile species are blended at key locations, which can be thought of as interfaces between major geological environments, where distinct geochemical reservoirs meet and interact. These interfaces are the prime locus of movement of volatile species from one Earth reservoir to another, and understanding the fundamental processes which act in these environments is key to unlocking the links between the deep Earth and its surface biosphere. The interfaces we have identified are:

(i) oceanic ridges
(ii) subduction zones
(iii) the mantle transition zone (between the 410 and 660 km discontinuities)
(iv) the crustal plutonic realm

The UK has wide expertise in the areas relevant to volatile cycling in the Earth, and we believe that the UK can make a unique contribution to the problem. We propose to focus on the key solid Earth interfaces outlined above, where volatile species are transferred between major geochemical reservoirs, and to formulate fundamental but tractable questions that the UK community can answer with research programme (RP) scale investment.

Because work in areas relevant to these problems involves a wide variety of techniques applied over a wide range of pressure and temperature regimes, formulation of these problems is the key challenge of this scoping phase.

As a scoping study, the proposed facilitated workshop format will be open only to academic researchers. At such an early stage in the development of a research programme, we do not expect the workshop to produce outputs which can offer direct and immediate impacts beyond the identification and refinement of key science goals for a major funded research programme.

The expected output from the scoping activities will be the identification of 3 or 4 major scientific questions in areas in which the UK's scientific and technical communities are world-leading and where we are on the brink of transformative science. Answering these questions would become tractable with RP-scale investment and would result in a significant step change in terms of understanding our planet's path to, and maintenance of, habitability. Substantial impacts would be expected to emerge at this stage.