J. Michael Brown

Headshot of J. Michael Brown.

J. Michael Brown

Research areas

Interests: Experimental and theoretical mineral physics

Education: Ph.D., Geophysics, University of Minnesota, 1980

Current Research:
Our existence is by permission of the deep Earth. Cycling of water, carbon, and all other life essential nutrients involves the actions of plate tectonics. Our atmosphere and oceans depend on physical and chemical processes that extend throughout Earth’s mantle. Our planet is 12,742 km in diameter. The deepest bore hole penetrates a mere 0.1% of this distance (to 12 km). In my research group, we investigate the properties of earth materials under a wide range of pressures and temperatures in order to better understand the processes occurring in the other 99.9% of Earth where geologic field trips are not yet possible.

Selected publications

  • Brown, J. M., R. J. Angel, and N. L. Ross (2016) Elasticity of plagioclase feldspars, J. Geophys. Res. Solid Earth, 121, doi:10.1002/2015JB012736
  • Brown, J.M., and Abramson, E.H. (2016) Elasticity of calcium and calcium-sodium amphiboles, Phys. Earth Planet. Int., 261, 161-171, doi: 10.1016/j.pepi.2016.10.010
  • Abramson, E.H., Bollengier, O., and Brown, J.M., (2017) Water-carbon dioxide solid phase equilibria at pressures above 4 GPa, Sci. Reports, 7, 821
  • Abramson, E.H., Bollengier, O., and Brown, J.M., (2017) The water-carbon dioxide miscibility surface to 450°C and 7 GPa, Am. J. Sci., 317, 967-989
  • Brown, J.M., (2018) Local basis function representations of thermodynamic surfaces: Water at high pressure and temperature as an example, Fluid Phase Equilibria, 463C, 18-31 doi:10.1016/j.fluid.2018.02.001
  • Abramson, E., Bollengier, O, Brown, J.M., Journaux, B, Kaminsky, W, Pakhomova, A, (2018) Carbonic acid monohydrate, American Mineralogist: doi.org/10.2138/am-2018-6554
    83. Brown, J.M. (2018) Determination of elastic moduli from measured acoustic velocities, Ultrasonics, 10.1016/j.ultras.2018.05.015
  • Bollengier, O., Brown, J.M., Shaw, G.H., (2019) Thermodynamics of pure liquid water: Sound speed measurements to 700 MPa down to the freezing point, and an equation of state to 2300 MPa from 240 to 500 K, J. Chem. Phys. 151, 054501 doi: 10.1063/1.5097179
  • Journaux, B., J.M. Brown, A. Pakhomova, I. Collings, S. Petitgirard, P. Espinoza, J. Ott, F. Cova, G. Garbarino, M. Hanfland (2020) Gibbs energy of ices III, V and VI: Wholistic thermodynamics and elasticity of the water phase diagram to 2300 MPa, J. Geophys. Res. Planets, 125, doi: e2019JE006176
  • Journaux, B., Kalousová, K., Sotin, C. , G. Tobie, S. Vance, J. Saur, O. Bollengier, L. Noack, T. Ruckriemen-Bez, T. Van Hoolst. K. M. Soderlund, J. M. Brown (2020). Large Ocean Worlds with High-Pressure Ices. Space Sci Rev 216, 7 (2020). Doi:10.1007/s11214-019-0633-7
  • Brown, J.M., B. Journaux (2020) Local-Basis-Function Equation of State for Ice VII-X to 450 GPa at 300 K, Minerals, 10, 92; doi:10.3390/min10020092