This National Science Foundation Project Grant award of $564,286 provides funding from September 1, 2022 through August 31, 2025 to support research investigating two hypotheses for the generation of Earth's ancient magnetic field. Funded under the Geosciences program (CFDA 47.050), the award will be used to conduct first-principles quantum-mechanical simulations to predict key material properties governing electron transport in silicate liquids and test whether a silicate dynamo hosted in Earth's early basal magma ocean or a thermoelectric dynamo produced by currents across the core-mantle boundary could have generated the field. The awardee, the University of California, Los Angeles, will compute physical properties like electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and Seebeck coefficient to assess the viability of silicate and thermoelectric dynamo mechanisms. Results of the ab initio simulations will provide fundamental insight into electron transport physics in liquids and directly inform experimental measurements. The project also supports graduate training in advanced materials simulation applied to geophysics.
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