The study of rock deformation required the development of high-pressure techniques, initially at room temperature and, from the 1960s, at high temperature. The progressive enhancement of the capabilities of Mervyn’s deformation machines has required solutions to several major technical challenges. Most significant among these have been internal heating and measurement within the pressure vessel of load and piston position, and arrangements for torsional deformation at both the micro-strains of seismic wave dispersion and attenuation and the very large strains sometimes encountered in natural rock deformation. It is no small testimony to the quality of Mervyn Paterson’s designs that his high-temperature testing machine has become the instrument of choice for experimental rock deformation worldwide.

Mervyn’s development of versatile equipment for experimental rock deformation has been motivated by a desire to understand the mechanical behavior of the Earth’s crust and a keen interest in material behavior more generally. His experimental studies of that distinctive class of materials known as rocks and minerals, supported by relevant theory, have provided insight into many naturally occurring phenomena. These range from folding and fabric development to dehydration embrittlement as a possible cause of earthquakes, from changes in porosity and permeability associated with dilatant behavior to the constitutive laws for high-temperature plastic deformation, from water weakening of quartz to geological applications of non-hydrostatic thermodynamics.

The purpose of this grant project was to collect and digitize Mervyn's design drawings and notes and to establish an archive for all of his records related to the rock deformation equipment that he built over 50+ years. Initially we thought it would be necessary to archive the material at the University of Minnesota until more permanent arrangements could be made with the Australian National University. Time was of the essence because of Mervyn's advanced age (he is now 93 years old). With that in mind, we arranged for Mervyn's drawings and some of his hand-written notes to be digitized by DatacomIT in Australia. Also quite fortunately, due to close collaboration with many wonderful people in Australia, including Mervyn's son, Barrie Paterson, who works with the Australian National Archive, and Ian Jackson, Professor at ANU, we were able to arrange for all of Mervyn's records, including both hard copies and the primary drawings and notes that we had digitized to be permanantly archived at ANU. This major project was undertaken and recently completed by Maggie Shapley the University Archivist at ANU.

Since the introduction of the HPT rigs to the broader community by Mervyn Paterson in 1991, over 12,000 experiments have been conducted on these rigs involving the scientific training of over 140 people, including numerous graduate students, post-docs, and visiting scientists at 10 different laboratories world wide.  This is a remarkable accomplishment and merits preservation of the development process by establishing an open access digital archive.  The continued evolution of Mervyn’s work will benefit the scientific communities in mineral and rock physics as well as material science.  The opportunities for advancement of this technology are greatly enhanced by the preservation of the groundwork that Mervyn has established and those advancements will provide training for future generations of scientists in multiple research endeavors.

Yesterday, I received the following confirmation from Maggie Shapley regarding the status of the archive.

Dear Dr Zimmerman

 We have now finished the documentation for Professor Paterson’s HPT records and he is happy with it. We’ve uploaded the PDFs of the drawings and other records to the University’s Open Research repository where they are available for public access. The drawings are grouped by number so while it appears that there are only 20 items altogether, there are many drawings in each item. These are separate links to:

 1.       Series and item descriptions http://archivescollection.anu.edu.au/index.php/mervyn-patersons-papers-and-drawings-relating-to-hpt-machines

2.       Authority record http://archivescollection.anu.edu.au/index.php/paterson-mervyn

3.       Digitised copies https://openresearch-repository-anu-edu-au.virtual.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/117174

 There is a hyperlink in the series description (and in the item descriptions where digitised copies exist) to the relevant part of the Open Research repository. The Archives database and the Open Research repository are also harvested by the National Library of Australia’s Trove database, so they should be findable! 

 Please do pass on this news to the rock deformation community.

Regards,

Maggie Shapley

University Archivist
ANU Archives (Noel Butlin Archives Centre, University Archives and Pacific Research Archives)

Menzies Building

2 Fellows Road
The Australian National University

Paterson gas apparatus continue to be outstanding laboratory instruments; yet they are no longer available commercially and maintenance is largely up to the faculty or technical personnel running individual rock deformation laboratories. Technical Workshops are planned to develop more reliable, lower-cost furnaces and to develop a standard internal load cell that provides reliable, high-resolution measurements, which can be used by all labs with Paterson apparatus.

The establishment of the Archive at ANU completes this project but it hopefully will allow others to advance experimental technology to better understand how the Earth works.

Last Modified: 08/01/2017
Modified by: Mark E Zimmerman