Studying the Deep Earth from Paris

Professor John Rudnicki spent his spring quarter (March 15 – June 15) academic leave in Paris at the Laboratoire de Geologie, École Normale Supérieure. ENS is the top university in France and is located in the center of Paris near the Pantheon and the Luxembourg Gardens. The Pantheon now contains a crypt in which icons of France culture, including Voltaire, Rousseau, and Joséphine Baker, are interred, as well as Foucault’s pendulum which proves the rotation of the earth. 

The Luxembourg Gardens inspired by the Boboli Gardens in Florence were created upon the initiative of Queen Marie de Medici in 1612. At ENS, he learned about deep-focus earthquakes, and water well changed due to seismic events and started a collaboration on the interaction of multiple slip-on faults due to fluid injection. 

Professor Rudnicki gave seminars at ENS, Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées (Paris), Université Grenoble Alpes Laboratoire 3SR, and the Department of Earth Sciences at Utrecht University and he gave a talk in the Mechanics and Geoscience Workshop at ENS. He also visited geomechanics laboratories at the University of Strasbourg and the University of Lille. In his spare time, he enjoyed wandering about the city learning its history, eating French food (including frog’s legs), frequenting jazz clubs, and hanging out at Les Ursulines café.