The East African Rift System (EARS) is a major plate tectonic feature splitting the African continent apart. Understanding the tectonic processes involved is of great importance for societal and economic reasons (natural hazards, resources). Laboratory experiments allow us to simulate these large-scale processes, highlighting the links between rotational plate motion and the overall development of the EARS. These insights are relevant when studying other rift systems around the globe as well.

This is the first time that the electrical conductivity of gabbroic melt was assessed at high temperature and high pressure. The dependence of electrical conductivity on the degree of depolymerization was also explored. Electrical conductivity of gabbroic melts can be employed to interpret high-conductivity anomalies in the Mohns Ridge of the Arctic Ocean. This is of widespread interest to potential readers in high-pressure rock physics, solid geophysics, and deep Earth science.

Wind turbines that are located close to a seismometer produce ground tremors that can increase the noise level at the seismic station. Using numerical models, we analyse the effectivity of borehole installations to reduce this impact. We study effects of geophysical parameters on the borehole effectivity and validate our modelling approach with data from real boreholes. Boreholes are effective in reducing the impact of wind turbines; however, this depends on the wavelength of the seismic wave.

The geothermal carbonate reservoir below Munich, Germany, is extremely heterogeneous because it is controlled by many factors like lithology, diagenesis, karstification, and tectonic deformation. We used a 3D seismic single- and multi-attribute analysis combined with well data and a neural-net-based lithology classification to obtain an improved reservoir concept outlining its structural and diagenetic evolution and to identify high-quality reservoir zones in the Munich area.

When a continent is pulled apart, it breaks and forms a series of depressions called rift basins. These basins lie above weakened crust that is then subject to intense deformation during subsequent tectonic compression. Our analogue experiments show that when a system of basins is squeezed in a direction perpendicular to the main trend of the basins, some basins rise up to form mountains while others do not.

We use numerical models to study the stresses arising from gravitational potential energy (GPE) variations and shear tractions associated with mantle convection in the Zagros–Iran region. The joint models predicted consistent deviatoric stresses that can explain most of the deformation indicators. Stresses associated with mantle convection are found to be higher than those from GPE, thus indicating the deformation in this region may primarily be caused by the mantle, except in eastern Iran.