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ABOUT

The UCLA PTX group travels to the Earth's interior vicariously via an arsenal of high pressure experimental apparatus. We simulate otherwise inaccessible geological conditions present in the crust and upper mantle. Our piston-cylinder presses allow us to routinely reach pressures equivalent to a depth of about 100 kilometers, about ten times deeper than the deepest hole ever dug.

Led by Professor Craig Manning, the UCLA PTX group continues a tradition of experimental petrology and geochemistry at UCLA that was originally established by George Kennedy and Art Montana. Our research currently covers a wide range of topics, including the chemistry of dense fluids in environments such as lower crust, subduction zones, and the oceans of icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn, the effect of fluid-rock interaction on atmospheric evolution, the solubility of hydrogen in nominally anhydrous minerals, and the partitioning of stable isotopes of Fe and Mg among minerals and melts at high temperature. Currently, the group includes 8 students and collaborators from around the world. Ex-PTXers can be found in the US, Canada, Australia and Europe.

EDITOR'S NOTE — The correct plural form of apparatus is apparatus. X is an arcane conventional abbreviation for composition.