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H2020Doctoral network2021–2025

FluidNET · Fluids driving the evolution of the continental crust: influence of pathway networks, fluxes, and time scales.

Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Duration
2021-01-01 → 2025-06-30
EU contribution
€3,186,978
Participants
8
Scheme
MSCA-ITN

Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.

Results in brief

Fluids driving the evolution of the continental crust: influence of pathway networks, fluxes, and time scales.

Today, human society faces unprecedented challenges: the impact of human actions on the environment is increasing, with global warming and depletion of resources. The EU Commission announced the ambitious ‘EU Green Deal’, with an energy transition away from fossil fuels to renewables. For this, demand for metals needed for generation, storage and transport of energy will grow strongly. The FluidNET consortium created a strong industry–academia collaboration of 8 beneficiaries (6 academic, 1 natural history museum, 1 industry partner) and multiple partner organisations. The charter of FluidNET is to constrain fluid–rock interaction processes underlying critical metal ores and to train early stage researchers (ESRs) in the skills to address growing resource demand. FluidNET partners noted the absence of initiatives bringing together disparate research fields: nano-/micro-chemistry, crustal-scale fluid mass transport, physical and chemical constraints for ore formation, and especially the timescales of such processes. FluidNET was designed to structure EU research by uniting a diverse, cross-disciplinary team of academic and industry leaders to deliver new training paths for future science leaders. Global industry partners BHP (ores), ThermoFisher Scientific (analytical equipment), and several consultancy firms actively contributed to FluidNET’s research goals and training. Its integrated approach develops crucial knowledge for the EU Green Deal and UN SDGs (#7, #13). FluidNET delivered the agreed training: academic skills for scientific research and transferable skills for teamwork, communication with peers, the public, and schools. It created a new collaborative platform uniting researchers in different earth science fields focusing on fluids. The PIs see further opportunities by connecting FluidNET with other MSCA ITNs in related areas. The 12 ESRs contributed significant advances: modelling fluid mobility, constraining mobility in time and distance, studying continental crust domains, simulating fluid–crystal interaction in labs, and examining porosity-related mobility. The outstanding challenge is to integrate these findings within the team and with other ITNs.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

Water is arguably the single most important volatile phase in the Earth’s continental crust. Fluids transfer and concentrateelements, enhance chemical reactions and facilitate deformation. In addition, through impact on porosity and permeability,fluids facilitate mass movement of fluids and dissolved substances. The transported elements may eventually concentrate ineconomically important reserves. Finding and responsibly exploiting such reserves depends on understanding how, whenand where fluids flow from the scale of micrometres to kilometres. Dwindling or geopolitically restricted supply and increasingdemand for resources accentuate the urgency for fluid transport models based on more comprehensive data andgroundtruthing.The overall scientific aim of FluidNET is to contribute to the underpinning data, development and testing of new nano- tocrustal-scale models of crustal fluid flux by constraining the time and length scales, mechanisms and provenance of crustalfluid fluxes at different crustal levels.To truly advance research on fluid fluxes, and thus impact society and in particular industry, a new generation of skilledpersonnel is required, who can work with such complex systems, and make interpretations and predictions based on largeand incomplete datasets. FluidNET will provide a stimulating cross-disciplinary environment for the training of a cohort ofearly stage researchers, ESRs, in skills that are essential across the resources sector. Our training programme willchallenge the ESRs with societally relevant questions, and will encourage them to ‘think outside the box’. They will learn toapply field observations, innovative analytical techniques and creative modelling approaches; to communicate effectivelywith a broad range of audiences; and to engage effectively with end-users of their research. Such skills will meet futureemployment demand and will enhance Europe’s capacity to provide innovative solutions to critical resource requirements.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

  • STICHTING VU · AmsterdamCoordinatorNetherlands
  • AMPHOS 21 CONSULTING SL · BarcelonaSpain
  • RHEINISCH-WESTFAELISCHE TECHNISCHE HOCHSCHULE AACHEN · AachenGermany
  • STICHTING NATURALIS BIODIVERSITY CENTER · LeidenNetherlands
  • THE OPEN UNIVERSITY · Milton KeynesUnited Kingdom
  • UNIVERSITA' DEGLI STUDI DI MILANO-BICOCCA · MilanoItaly
  • UNIVERSITAET MUENSTER · MuensterGermany
  • UNIVERSITEIT UTRECHT · UtrechtNetherlands

Links

Data: CORDIS, © European Union