Dr Fabian Wadsworth

Great time last month at Sandfell in Iceland discovering new aspects of how magma moves in the Earth’s shallow crust. Thanks to Hugh and Ed for joining. And amazing to find the Fish Factory arts centre, the creative centre of Stöðvarfjörður!

As part of this paper, Katie Schofield (PhD student at Durham University) unravelled the crystallization history of this sample from the Adamello massif to show how melt fraction evolved. It's exactly that kind of mush seize-up at low melt fraction that our model is built to predict.

New paper! The last of Eloïse Bretagne's PhD papers is out! Here we generalize our models for permeability to magma mush at any melt fraction. Take a look if you want to model percolative flow of melt through a magma mush and if you want to account for crystal shape.
OA: dx.doi.org/10.1029/2025...

No papers. But a small group of us are working on the physics of the pyroclastic emplacement model - it's hard to imagine a viscous liquid getting into all those tiny cracks. Interested in having a discussion about it?

Big news (& a little late in posting)…last month I defended my thesis and I’m now Dr Foster! 🩺🌋

I’m SO grateful for the support throughout, but especially over the last two years, & to my supervisors @fabianwadsworth.bsky.social, @htuffen.bsky.social & Madeleine. A huge thank you to my examiners @richardjbrown.bsky.social & @volcanologist.bsky.social for helping me end on such a high!

#Sintering

The first few days of Melts Glasses Magmas short course taught. Excited to have covered glass and melt structure and properties, up to and including brittle unrelaxed melt rupture due to viscoelasticity.
doi.org/10.1038/s414...

Tell me you’re working on bubble growth in magmas without telling me you’re working on bubble growth in magmas.

🚀New paper -> doi.org/10.1088/1361...

A fun, left-field project with the Earth Sci crew at @durhamearthsci.bsky.social: we built & tested projectile motion datasets for teaching physics, complete with experiments & code. Lovely to see my illustrations published too!

Congratulations to @geologytalk.bsky.social on passing her viva! Thanks to @richardjbrown.bsky.social and @volcanologist.bsky.social for examining! 🎉👌🍻💫 #ProudSupervisor #Sintering

Discussing Forchheimer and Klinkenberg corrections for permeability data with @annathrl.bsky.social, who is currently visiting Strasbourg to measure her many dome samples! 🌋
@fabianwadsworth.bsky.social

Colin Rennie is an artist I'm thrilled to be working with. Check out his page here where he lays out the elements of our ongoing collaboration around the mysterious material: obsidian.
www.colinrennie.co.uk/research

hello hi i am presenting a poster #IAVCEI2025 (session 3.4) on long-lasting ashy rhyolite eruptions esp. in Iceland, come chat come come

Go chat with @alicerpaine.bsky.social about our work comparing plumes in moderately large explosive eruptions with those rare and exceptional magnitude 8 events.

If you’re interested in hydrothermal sealing and explosions, check out my #IAVCEI25 @iavcei.bsky.social poster today! Number 29! 🌋

I remain obsessed by sintering processes. Here’s Julia talking about sintering of crystal-bearing granular materials with implications for silicic eruptions.

Bravo to @frankiehaywood.bsky.social and to Patrick Sullivan both for presenting at IAVCEI. I’m really excited about both of these projects.

New paper in Volcanica looks at the thermal properties of rhyolites from Havre volcano, a submarine volcano in the Kermadec arc (Pacific Ocean)! 🌋

With Rebecca Carey, @smitchellscience.bsky.social, and @fabianwadsworth.bsky.social

It's diamond open access 👇

doi.org/10.30909/vol...

New article: how can we use projectile motion experiments in a classroom to teach physics and maths? Here are some suggested exercises: iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...

@thatcubfan135.bsky.social what’s the best way to contact you about a collaboration between Minecraft aficionados and volcanoes science (to do with obsidian specifically)?

Fun workshop at Lehigh University on bubble nucleation processes with some fantastic research on show. Thanks to everyone who came.

Super successful and fascinating trip with @annathrl.bsky.social and @frankiehaywood.bsky.social. It’s a joy to work with such brilliant and thoughtful collaborators and students.

With @annathrl.bsky.social and @frankiehaywood.bsky.social doing more experiments and measurements at LMU.

Fluid flow streamlines through a bed of packed ground coffee from @squaremilecoffee.bsky.social.

On the road again (or should I say in the air again)! Off to @unistra.fr first and then a few weeks in @lmumuenchen.bsky.social !
It's worth at least a Punk with a view.
See you there @fabianwadsworth.bsky.social @frankiehaywood.bsky.social 🌋🌼

The grind setting on a Mahlkönig represents the spacing between the burrs. Therefore grind setting is linear with the mean coffee grain radius produced by grinding. These grinds were made from two coffees from Squaremile with Gareth Jones from James Hoffmann’s team.

Our new magma mush permeability model can predict the permeability of both disequilibrium and equilibrated micro-textures, including down to very low melt fractions (porosities). This model is flexible and could be used in the future embedded in simulations of melt percolation in the crust.

We're simulating melt flow through crystallising magma mush. As the melt channels are progressively shut off, the flow is localised in the tight connected spaces that remain.

‼️ New paper alert! Putting my research hat back on… here’s a pre-print about the sintering of small glass particles. We think it demonstrates what’s going on in the shallow sub-surface of silicic #volcanoes! Ash + sintering = lava = hybrid eruptions!
#Geology

Paper here —> tinyurl.com/kmfy7pek 🌋