Bjørn O. Mysen conducts experimental high-temperature and pressure studies; properties and processes of rock-forming and related materials with an emphasis on melting, phase relations of mantle materials, fluids in melting processes, properties and structure of melts and glasses; element partitioning between minerals, fluids, and melts at high pressures and temperatures.

Mysen is an experimental geochemist whose research is focused on experimental characterization materials and energy transport in the Earth and terrestrial planets. These transport processes are governed by thermochemical, rheological, and transport properties of melts, minerals and fluids at high temperatures and pressures. Experimental studies are conducted aimed at quantitative modeling of these properties depends on characterization of structure and relationships between structure and properties of these rock-forming materials. To this end, transport properties (e.g., viscosity and diffusion) are quantified via the relationships between structural configurations and thermochemically and rheologically obtained configurational properties. Activity-composition relations among structural units are determined by combining liquidus phase relations and high-temperature structural studies. Melt-mineral trace element partitioning may also be addressed.

Bjørn Mysen received his Ph.D. from the Pennsylvania State university in 1974, and after 3 years as a Carnegie Corporation Fellow at the Geophysical Laboratory, joined the senior staff in 1977. He has been visiting professor at Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (France) (2001, 2004) and at the Institut for the Study of the Earth’s Interior of the University of Okayama at Misasa (Japan) (2006, 2007-). He has also served as Recherce Associé at theThe CNRS research laboratory in Orleans (France) and as Visitinng cientist at the Bayerisches Geoinstitut (Germany) (1988). He is a member of The Royal Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, and Thomson Research/ISI Highly Cited Researcher since 2001, Fellow of the Miralogical Society, a World Innovation Fellow, and Geochemistry Fellow by both the Geochemical Society and the European Association of Geochemistry in 2008. He is the recipient of the Reusch Medal from the Norwegian Geological Society, Clarke Medal from the Geochemical Society of America, and the Morey Award from American Ceramics Society. He currently serves as associate editor of Geochimica et Cosmocochimca Acta and American Mineralogist. He is the editor of 5 books, and author of two books and about 270 peer-reviewed papers.

Recent publications:

Mysen, B. O. and Cody, G. D. (2004) Solubility and solution mechanisms of H2O in silicate melts and glasses at high pressure and temperature. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta. 68, 5113-5126.

Mysen, B. O. and Shang, J. (2005) Evidence from olivine/melt element partitioning that nonbridging oxygen in silicate melts are not equivalent. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta, 69, 2861-2875.

Mysen, B. O. and Cody, G. D. (2005) Solution mechanisms of H2Oin depolymerized peralkaline melts. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta, 69, 5557-5566.

Cody, G. D., Mysen, B. O., and Lee, S. K. (2005) Structure vs. composition: a solid-state 1H and 29Si NMR study of quenched glasses along the Na2O-SiO2-H2O join. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta, 69, 2373-2384.

Mysen, B. O. (2006) The structural behavior of ferric and ferrous iron in aluminosilicate glass near meta-aluminosilicate joins. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta, 70, 2337-2353.

Mysen, B. O. (2006) Redox equilibria and melt structure: Implications for olivine/melt element partitioning. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta. 70, 3121-3138

Roskosz, M., Mysen, B. O., and Cody, G. D. (2006) Dual speciation of nitrogen in silicate melts at high pressure and temperature: An experimental study. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta. 70, 2902-2918.

Mysen, B. O. (2007) Partitioning of Calcium, Magnesium, and Transition Metals between Olivine and Melt Governed by the Structure of the Silicate Melt at ambient Pressure. Amer. Mineral. 92, 844-862.

Mysen, B. O. and Toplis, M. J. (2007) Structural behavior of Al3+ in peralkaline, meta-aluminous, and peraluminous silicate melts and glasses at ambient pressure. Amer. Mineral. 92, 933-946.

Mysen, B. O. (2007) The solution behavior of H2O in peralkaline aluminosilicate melts at high pressure with implications for properties of hydrous melts. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta, 71, 1820-1834.