News and Announcements

New paper in Advances in Geo-Energy Research by recent MIT ERL/CEE alum Dr. Lluís Saló-Salgado (now a postdoc at Harvard), ERL/CEE Prof. Ruben Juanes, and collaborators from Norwegian research company SINTEF: “Three-dimensional simulation of geologic carbon dioxide sequestration using MRST“. “Physics-based computational modeling of subsurface CO2 migration constitutes the primary tool to assess geologic carbon… read more…

On June 21, 2024, Brindha successfully defended her PhD thesis entitled “Shifting Paradigms: Data-Centric Approach for Marine Statics Correction Using Symmetric Autoencoding”. Her advisor was Prof. Laurent Demanet of ERL, Dept. of Mathematics, and Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. read more…

Former ERL Associate Director Dr. Michael Fehler is one of three people chosen to receive a Presidential Award this year from the Society of Exploration Geophysicists. SEG President Arthur Cheng chose to honor Dr. Fehler for his work on SEAM, the research arm of SEG which organizes collaborations among industry, government, and academia to address… read more…

ERL is excited to welcome Dr. Ben Holtzman as Senior Research Scientist in ERL and the Department of Earth, Atmospheric an Planetary Sciences at MIT. Dr. Holtzman studies the mechanical behavior of rocks, with a broad range of applications, including how magmas move through the planet’s interior to feed volcanoes, how seismic waves move through… read more…

New paper in Petroleum Science by a team that includes ERL Prof. Ruben Juanes and Research Affiliate Prof. Luis Cueto-Felgueroso: “Statistical assessment of the financial performance of shale-gas wells coupling stochastic and numerical simulation.” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1995822624002024 Abstract: We present a new methodology to statistically determine the net present value (NPV) and internal rate of return (IRR)… read more…

At this year’s annual symnposium of the American Rock Mechanics Association (ARMA), one of six “Best Paper” awards went to “A Microscale Analysis of Millimeter-wave Induced Vitrified Basalt for Use in Enhanced Geothermal Energy Systems,” by ERL/CEE PhD candidate Eve Meltzer, CEE Research Scientist Damian Stefaniuk, and ERL/CEE Prof. Herbert Einstein. http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/153727 “Extraction of the… read more…

On May 28, 2024, Cassandra successfully defended her PhD thesis entitled “Deformation and its Surface Expression in Stressed Planetary Materials”. Her advisor was Prof. Matěj Peč of ERL and Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. read more…

MIT News features work by ERL/EAPS Principal Research Scientist Dr. Sai Ravela: A new downscaling method leverages machine learning to speed up climate model simulations at finer resolutions, making them usable on local levels. by Paige Colley|EAPS June 11, 2024 Climate models are a key technology in predicting the impacts of climate change. By running… read more…

How accurately can researchers predict the results of underground carbon storage? Prof. Ruben Juanes of ERL/CEE is part of a team addressing this question with a new paper in the International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1750583624001051 “Geological storage of carbon dioxide is a cornerstone in almost every realistic emissions reduction scenario outlined by the… read more…

During MITEI’s Spring Symposium, MIT Assistant Professor Iwnetim Abate said that geologic hydrogen opens up the idea of earth as a “factory to produce clean fuels,” utilizing the subsurface heat and pressure instead of relying on burning fossil fuels or natural gas for the same purpose. MIT News takes a closer look at geologic hydrogen… read more…