dgoldsby@sas.upenn.edu
My overall research interest is in mineral and rock physics, with an emphasis on the rheological behavior of Earth and planetary materials. I am an experimental geophysicist who applies theories and methods of materials science to understand geophysical processes at large scales. Experiments are conducted at high confining pressure and at ambient pressure, at high temperatures in the case of materials like olivine and at cryogenic temperatures in the case of ice and other cryomaterials. One particular focus of my research has been grain size-sensitive flow of materials, a creep behavior which involves grain boundary sliding. This flow behavior dominates at lower stresses than for dislocation creep, and therefore can control the rheological behavior of materials in low-deviatoric-stress natural environments, such as in glaciers and icy satellites, as well as in the interiors of the Earth and other planets.