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Robert C. LiebermannResearch Professor, May 2014 to Present Ph.D., Columbia University, 1969 Senior Research Fellow, Australian National University, 1970-76 Faculty Member at Stony Brook May 1976 to May 2014 President of COMPRES (September 2003 to January 2010) |
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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 |
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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 has been 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,
Ting Chen, Joseph Cooke, Kenneth Darling, Fréderic Decremps, Lucy Flesch, Gabriel
Gwanmesia, Jennifer Kung, Baosheng Li, Jun Liu, Sally Rigden, Yegor Sinelnikov, Xuebing
Wang and Jianzhong Zhang.
A program studying the kinetics and mechanisms of phase transformations in silicate
minerals and their analogs 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.
Liebermann received the Edward A. Flinn Award from the American Geophysical Union
in 2012 for facilitating international collaborations, enabling the development of
new community facilities for mineral physics research, and implementing activities
to support and promote the entire mineral physics community as President of COMPRES.
In 2014, a research team from the California Institute of Technology and the University
of Nevada at Las Vegas discovered a new hollandite phase of KAlSi3O8 in the Zagami
meteorite from Mars and named it “liebermannite” for his fundamental contributions
to high-pressure mineral physics research.
Selected Publications [2000-2015]
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.
Yamanaka, T., R. C. Liebermann, and C. T. Prewitt, Thermal expansion of aluminous perovskite ScAlO3, Journal of Mineralogical and Petrological Sciences, 95, 182-192, 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.
Carpenter, M. A., P. Sondergeld, B. Li, J. W. Walsh, J. Schreuer, T. W. Darling and R. C. Liebermann, Structural evolution, strain and elasticity of perovskites at high pressures and temperatures, Plenary Lecture at IMA Meeting in Kobe, Japan, July 2006, , J. Mineralogical and Petrological Sciences, 101, 95-109, 2006.
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.
Higo, Y., T. Inoue, B. Li, T. Irifune and R. C. Liebermann, The effect of iron on the elastic properties of ringwoodite at high pressure, Phys. Earth Planet. Interiors, 159, 276-285, 2006.
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.
Kung, J., I. Jackson, and R. C. Liebermann (2011), High-temperature elasticity of polycrystalline orthoenstatite (MgSiO3), American Mineralogist, 96(4), 577-585, doi:<p>10.2138/am.2011.3632
Liebermann, R. C., Bob-san and High Pressure Science and Technology in Japan: A 40+-Year History, Rev. High Pressure Science and Technology, 21, 115-126, 2011.
Liebermann, R. C., Multi-anvil, high-pressure apparatus: A half century of development and progress, High Pressure Research, 31, 493-532, 2011.
Liebermann, R. C., and C. T. Prewitt, From Airlie House in 1977 to Lake Morey in 2007: 30 Years of evolution of mineral physics, Phys. Earth Planet. Interiors, 228, 36-45, 2014.
Gwanmesia, G. D., L. Wang, A. Heady, and R. C. Liebermann, Elasticity and sound velocities of polycrystalline grossular (Ca3Al2Si3O12) at simultaneous high pressures and high temperatures, Phys. Earth Planet. Interiors, 228, 80-97, 2014.
Li, B., J. Kung, W. Liu and R. C. Liebermann, Phase transition and elasticity of enstatite under pressure from experiments and first-principles calculations, Phys. Earth Planet. Interiors, 228, 63-74, 2014.
Liebermann, R. C., History of Japan-U.S./High Pressure Mineral Physics Seminars: 1976 to 2012, Phys. Earth Planet. Interiors, 233, 1-35, 2014.
Liebermann, R. C., The Role of Serendipity in My Career in Mineral Physics: 1968 to 2013, Phys. Earth Planet. Interiors, 233, 307-323, 2014.
Li, B., and R. C., Liebermann, Study of the Earth's interior using measurements of sound velocities in minerals by ultrasonic interferometry, Phys. Earth Planet. Interiors, 233, 135-153. 2014.
Chen, T., G. D. Gwanmesia, X. Wang, Y. Zou, R. C. Liebermann, C. Michaut, and B. Li, Anomalous elastic properties of coesite at high pressure and implications for the upper mantle X-discontinuity, Earth Planet. Sci. Letters, 412, 42-51, 2015.
10 April 2015