Shun-ichiro Karato

Shun-ichiro Karato is a world renowned leader in studying the Earth's deep interior through laboratory experiments on minerals at extreme conditions. He is a pioneer in determining how rocks deform, melt and store water inside terrestrial planets. Karato has produced a large body of important experimental data, and has proffered some of the leading ideas and hypotheses for deep-Earth dynamics. His many contributions have advanced our knowledge of how the Earth's mantle convects and causes plate tectonics, how water is stored and exchanged between the Earth's surface and interior, and how our planet's inner core has evolved through time.