Robert C. Liebermann 

Robert C. Liebermann

Distinguished Service Professor

Office: ESS 167   
E-mail Address: Robert.Liebermann "at" stonybrook.edu

B.S., California Institute of Technology, 1964 Ph.D., Columbia University, 1969 Senior Research Fellow, Australian National University, 1970-76 Faculty Member at Stony Brook since 1976 President of COMPRES (September 2003 to January 2010)

Visiting Professor, Université Paris-Sud, Orsay, 1983-84 Visiting Professor, University of Tokyo, 1984 Visiting Professor, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, 1990 Visiting Professor, Australian National University, Canberra, 1991-1992  Visiting Professor, Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France, 2002-2003

Professor Liebermann's research interests are in the field of mineral physics, which is dedicated to understanding how the physical and chemical properties of minerals and rocks control their geological behavior, especially at high pressures and temperatures.

In 1984, with support from the Instrumentation and Facilities Program of the NSF Division of Earth Sciences and the University at Stony Brook, Liebermann and Professor Donald Weidner acquired and developed two types of multi-anvil, high-pressure equipment for the new Stony Brook High- Pressure Laboratory. These facilities were the first of their kind in the geoscience community in the United States and include a DIA-type cubic anvil apparatus with a 250-ton hydraulic press (SAM 95) and uniaxial split-sphere apparatus of the Kawai-type with a 2,000-ton hydraulic press (USSA-2000). The latter apparatus is now being utilized for synthesis experiments to pressures of 250 kbar and temperatures of 2500 K, whereas SAM-85 has been interfaced with the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) at Brookhaven National Laboratory for in situ X-ray experiments. These unique facilities formed the core of the Stony Brook node of the NSF Science and Technology Center for High Pressure Research (CHiPR) from 1991-2002.

Special interest is now focused on the role of polymorphic phase transformations in minerals in large-scale dynamic processes in the Earth's interior. Polycrystalline specimens of the low- and high-pressure polymorphs of mantle minerals are synthesized in the USSA-2000 apparatus. These specimens are then used for ultrasonic measurements of the elastic wave velocities as a function of pressure and temperature; these acoustic experiments were initially performed in a 1000-ton uniaxial split-cylinder apparatus by Baosheng Li (research faculty colleague) in collaboration with Dr. Ian Jackson of the Australian National University. Later, our team has successfully adapted these techniques for use in SAM-85 installed on the superconducting wiggler beamline (X17B) at the (NSLS) and in other multi-anvil apparatus at the Advanced Photon Source of the Argonne National Laboratory. This has provided the opportunity to peform sound velocity measurements in polycrystalline and single crystal specimens at simultaneous high pressures and temperatures using ultrasonics in conjunction with synchrotron X-radiation determinations of the equation of state (see papers below by Ganglin Chen, Joseph Cooke, Kenneth Darling, Fréderic Decremps, Lucy Flesch, Gabriel Gwanmesia, Jennifer Kung, Baosheng Li, Jun Liu, Sally Rigden, Yegor Sinelnikov, and Jianzhong Zhang.

A program studying the kinetics and mechanisms of phase transformations in silicate minerals and their analogs has used transmission electron microscopy (TEM) as the principal analytical tool. The most recent studies, in collaboration with research assistant professor Yanbin Wang, postdoctoral associate Isabelle Martinez, and visiting professor Francois Guyot, focussed on the transformation of natural olivine to the perovskite + magnesiowstite phase assemblage at pressures corresponding to 720 kilometers depth.

In addition to the colleagues mentioned above, Liebermann has had ongoing collaboration on diffusion in minerals with the late Olivier Jaoul at the Université Paul Sabatier in Toulouse, France. This collaboration has been carried out with a series of graduate students and postdoctoral associates, including Yves Bertran-Alvarez, Paul Raterron and Frédéric Béjina, who have been studying the effect of pressure on Fe-Mg interdiffusion and Si self-diffusion in olivine.

Liebermann is also a founding member the Committee on Mineral and Rock Physics and a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the Mineralogical Society of America. In April 2004, he received the degree of Docteur Honoris Causa from the Université Paul Sabatier in Toulouse, France.

From September 2003 to January 2010, Liebermann served as President of the Consortium for Materials Properties Research in Earth Sciences [COMPRES]. The headquarters of COMPRES are in the Mineral Physics Institute of Stony Brook University.

Robert C. Liebermann

Selected Publications [2000-2010]

Gwanmesia, G. D., J. Liu, G. Chen, S. Kesson, S. M. Rigden, and R. C. Liebermann, Elasticity of the pyrope (Mg3Al2Si3O12)-majorite (MgSiO3) garnets solid solution, Phys. Chem. Minerals, 27, 445-452, 2000

Li, B., and R. C. Liebermann, Sound velocities of wadsleyite ß-(Mg0.88Fe0.12)2SiO4 to 10 GPa, Am. Mineralogist, 85, 292-295, 2000.

Decremps, F. B. Li, and R. C. Liebermann, Single-crystal elasticity of ZnO at high pressure, Proceedings of AIRAPT Conference, Honolulu, Hawaii, July 1999. Vol. 2, pp. 810-813, in Science and Technology and High Pressure, edited by M. H. Manghnani, W. J. Nellis, and M. F. Nicol, 2 volumes, 1117 pages, 2000.

Liu, J., G. Chen, G. D. Gwanmesia, and R. C. Liebermann, Elastic wave velocities of pyrope-majorite garnets (Py62Mj38 and Py50Mj50) to 9 GPa, Phys. Earth Planet. Interiors,  120, 153-163, 2000.

Decremps, F., J. Zhang, and R. C. Liebermann, New phase boundary and high pressure thermoelasticity of ZnO, Europhysics Letters,  51, 268-274  , 2000.

Decremps, F. J. Zhang, B. Li, and R. C. Liebermann, Pressure-induced softening of shear modes in ZnO, Phys. Rev. B, 63, 224105, 2001.

Li, B., R. C. Liebermann, and D. J. Weidner, P-V-VP-VS-T measurements on wadsleyite to 7 GPa and 873 K: Implications for the 410-km seismic discontinuity, J. Geophys. Res., 106, 30,575-30,591, 2001.

Kung, J., B. Li, D. J. Weidner, J. Zhang and R. C. Liebermann, Elasticity of (Mg 0.83 Fe 0.17)O ferropericlase at high pressure:  Ultrasonic measurements in conjunction with X-radiation techniques, Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 203, 557-566,  2002.

Li, B., K. Chen, J. Kung, R. C. Liebermann, and D. J. Weidner, Sound velocity measurement using transfer function method, Proceedings of AIRAPT Conference, Beijing, July 2001, J. Physics Condensed Matter, 14, 11337-11342, 2002.

Béjina, F., O. Jaoul, and R.C. Liebermann, Diffusion at high pressure:  A review, Phys. Earth Planet. Interiors, 139, 3-20, 2003.

Darling, K.L., G.D. Gwanmesia, J. Kung, B. Li, and R.C. Liebermann, Ultrasonic measurements of the sound velocities in polycrystalline San Carlos olivine in multi-anvil, high-pressure apparatus, Phys. Earth Planet. Interiors, 143-144, 19-31, 2004.

Li, B., J. Kung, and R.C. Liebermann, Modern techniques in measuring elasticity of Earth materials at high pressure and high temperature using ultrasonics in conjunction with synchrotron X-radiation, Phys. Earth Planet. Interiors, 143-144, 559-574, 2004.

Sinelnikov, Y.D., G. Chen, and R.C. Liebermann, Dual mode ultrasonic interferometry in multi-anvil, high-pressure apparatus using single-crystal olivine as the pressure standard, Inter. J. High Pressure Research, 24, 183-191, 2004.

Kung, J., B. Li, T. Uchida, Y. Wang, D. Neuville, and R. C. Liebermann, In situ measurements of sound velocities and densities across the orthopyroxene->high-pressure clinopyroxene transition in MgSiO3 at high pressure, Phys. Earth Planet. Interiors, 147, 27-44, 2004.

Gwanmesia, G. D., J. Zhang, K. Darling, J. Kung, B. Li, L. Wang, D. Neuville, and R. C. Liebermann, Elasticity of polycrystalline pyrope (Mg3Al2Si3O12) to 9 GPa and 1000°C, Phys, Earth Planet. Interiors, 155, 179-190, 2006..

Liebermann, R. C., Future of High Pressure Mineral Physics/Role of COMPRES, EOS, Transactions of American Geophysical Union, 40, pp. 365,373, 2005 [4 October 2005 issue].

Kung, J., B. Li, and R. C. Liebermann, Ultrasonic observations of elasticity changes across phase transformations in Mg SiO3 pyroxenes, J. Phys. Chem. Solids, 67, 2051-2055, 2006.

Gwanmesia, G. D., I. Jackson, and R. C. Liebermann, In search of the mixed derivative ∂2M/∂P∂T (M = G, K): joint analysis of ultrasonic data for polycrystalline pyrope from gas- and solid-medium apparatus, Phys. Chem. Minerals, DOI 10.1007/s00269-006-0130-x., 2007.

Antao, S. M., I. Jackson, Baosheng Li, Jennifer Kung, Jiuhua Chen, Ishmael Hassan, Robert C. Liebermann, and John B. Parise,  High-temperature elasticity of magnesioeferrite spinel, Phys. Chem. Minerals, DOI 10.1007/s00269-007-0152-z, 2007.

Carpenter, M. A., B. Li, R. C. Liebermann, Elastic anomalies accompanying phase transitions in (Ca, Sr)TiO3 perovskites III:  Experimental investigation of polycrystalline samples, Am. Mineralogist, Am. Mineralogist, 92, 344-355, 2007.

Li, B., and R. C. Liebermann, Indoor seismology by probing the Earth’s interior by using sound velocity measurements at high pressures and temperatures, Proc. National Acad. Sci., 104, 9145-9150, 2007

154.  Gwanmesia, G. D., L. Wang, R. Triplett, and R. C. Liebermann, Pressure and temperature dependence of the elasticity of pyrope-majorite [Py60Mj40 and Py50Mj50] garnets solid solution measured by ultrasonic interferometry technique, Phys. Earth Planet. Interiors, 174, 105-112, 2009.

23 March 2010

Department of Geosciences - Earth and Space Science Building, Stony Brook, NY 11794-2100  Phone: (631) 632-8200

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