Alexandre FOURNIER professor of geophysics Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris 1 rue Jussieu 75238 Paris cedex 05 Tel: (33) 1 83 95 74 75

Research

Geomagnetism, Earth's core dynamics and the geodynamo

• The main goal of my research is to help understand earth's core dynamics, which is indirectly reflected by the spatial and temporal variability of the earth's magnetic field. I aim at contributing to the understanding of the physical processes responsible for this variability, through proper analysis of magnetic observations and experimental results. A consistent relationship between observations and dynamical models of the core can be set up in the framework of data assimilation. An ongoing research project in this line of research is the AVSGeomag ANR program, details of which can be found here: avsgeomag.ipgp.fr. My work in geomagnetic data assimilation currently involves collaborations with
  • Julien Aubert , Erwan Thébault, and Gauthier Hulot at IPGP,
  • Nicolas Gillet, Dominique Jault, and Nathanael Schaeffer at ISTerre, Grenoble (formerly known as LGIT),
  • Elisabeth Canet at ETH Zurich,
  • Emmanuel Cosme at LEGI, Grenoble.
  • Lars Nerger at the Alfred Wegener Institute for polar and marine research, Bremerhaven, Germany.
  • Matthias Morzfeld from the department of mathematics, University of California, Berkeley, USA.
• In a complementary effort, Elisabeth Canet, Christopher C. Finlay, and myself have started a collaboration to try and better characterize the hydromagnetic oscillations which can exist in a quasi-geostrophic conducting fluid.
  
• Through a master's class we teach together, my colleague Jean-Pierre Valet got me interested in geomagnetic reversals. See the publication list for details.
• Phil Livermore (University of Leeds), Yves Gallet (IPGP) and I have started a collaboration aiming at assessing the dynamical likelihood of extreme changes which sometimes appear in the archeomagnetic record. See the publication list for details.

Other research interests

• My other research interests are related to
  • theoretical and computational seismology
    My collaborators in this area are
    • Tarje Nissen-Meyer (ETH Zurich),
    • Eric Beucler (LPG Nantes)
    • Yann Capdeville (LPG Nantes).
  • theoretical and computational fluid dynamics
    This involves ongoing work with
    • Marcus Gellert (AI Potsdam),
    • Rainer Hollerbach (University of Leeds),
    • Thomas Von Larcher (Free University of Berlin).


Please consult the publication list for further details, and an update.