COMPRES, the Consortium for Materials Properties Research in Earth Sciences is a community-based consortium whose goal is to enable Earth Science researchers to conduct the current and future generations of high-pressure science on world-class equipment and facilities. COMPRES facilitates the operation of synchrotron beam lines, the development of new technologies for high-pressure research, and supports scientific, outreach, and educational programs for both students and professional scientists.

COMPRES activities fall into the categories of Facilities, Infrastructure Development, and Education & Outreach, all specifically in support of research and education for the high-pressure Earth sciences community. COMPRES facilities focus on synchrotron beamlines at US National Laboratories, including the National Synchrotron Light Source (Brookhaven, NY), the Advanced Light Source (Berkeley, CA), and the Advanced Light Source (Argonne, IL). These facilities for experimentation using X-ray and infra-red radiation are at the heart of much of the research performed in the mineral physics community and in high-pressure sciences in general. Specialized facilities allow experiments under pressure and temperature conditions that are similar to those in the very deepest parts of the Earth. 

COMPRES educational activities includes instructional workshops aimed at graduate students and post-doctoral students, online courses, and online content in the area of high-pressure science. These activities make it possible for students to access and fully utilize the most advanced techniques for addressing scientific questions that are on the cutting edge of research. Through a lecture series, COMPRES reaches out to undergraduates in universities across the nation, introducing them to ongoing research in studies of the Earth’s deep interior and the scientific opportunities available in the discipline of mineral physics.

Through this range of activities, COMPRES has promoted our understanding of the Earth, from the near-surface to the very center of our planet. The results of research performed by COMPRES have advanced our understanding of the following questions:

• What is the cause of plate tectonics?
• How do solid rocks flow at great depth?
• What are the causes of earthquakes and volcanism where tectonic plates converge?
• How can we use seismology to tell us the chemical composition of Earth’s mantle and central core, and what is the atomic structure of materials at depth?
• How do the mantle and core interact at their boundary 3000 km beneath the surface, and how much heat is transported across the core-mantle boundary (ultimately up to the surface)?
• Is there water in the Earth’s interior, and if so how many ocean equivalents are there?
• Why do diamonds exist in rocks from Earth’s deep interior, and how deep do they come from?
• Do materials become weaker or stronger as particle size gets smaller?
• What are the properties of materials like iron and hydrogen at pressure equal to those in the center of the Earth?

Research performed by COMPRES has contributed to answering all of the above questions. New techniques have been developed to perform new types of experiments at high pressures using diamond-anvil devices and large presses with multiple anvils. It is now possible to accurately characterize the crystal structure and physical properties of materials at ultra-high pressure conditions. New techniques allow measurements of heat transport at high pressures and temperatures, and thus the thermal structure of the deep Earth.

Earth scientists have been leaders and innovators in high-pressure research, driven to answer fundamental questions about the Earth such as those listed above. As a result, mineral physics research has had a broad impac...

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