Pattern formation in the geosciences

Basically, in our research, we are interested in understanding the natural structures that anyone can see around themselves, every day, and using them to explore a range of fundamental problems where complex interactions on one length or timescale give rise to some simple structure, or pattern on another scale.  Some past and current research topics include:

• Showing how columnar joints, like those of the Giants Causeway, order and scale, using a combination of analogue experiments in corn starch, field work, and theory.
• Modelling of the vast polygonal permafrost patterns of polar Earth and Mars with the cyclic drying of clay in a Petri dish, to explain how they form and order.
• Shearing polymers to understand the scaling and formation of billion-year old fossil wrinkle structures in microbial mats (i.e. exploring the rheology of ancient life).
• Showing a general route of solidification from disordered liquid, to ordered soft solid, to a final hard solid, as charged colloids (paints, coatings) dry. 
• Using this route to understand and control birefringence in photonic materials. 
• The elucidation of plastic relaxation mechanisms that can toughen paint when, counter-intuitively, the adhesion between its constituent particles is weakened.
• Characterizing how mutations may cause disease on the level of a protein pathway, rather than the traditional idea of one mutation, one protein, one syndrome.
• Investigating structure (shear-bands; anisotropic solids) in charged colloidal dispersions, and using scattering methods (SAXS) to look at how poly-disperse colloids crystallise.
• Fracture patterns – going from characterising natural crack networks, to explaining how cracks interact and grow, to templating designer structures.
• Development of model materials for studying cohesive granular media (e.g. artificial sandstone): applications include hydraulic fracture, bio-fouling, and biogenic cracks.     
• Using microfluidic methods to design model 2D porous media, to critically test pore-network modelling of multiphase flows, e.g. drying; reactive flow; CO₂ sequestration.
• Exploring elastic instabilities on curved sheets (e.g. a contact lens).  How do you design a curved surface that will spontaneously fold into a desired shape as it wets, or grows?