Interdisciplinary workshop success!

Fluid-Filled Fractures Workshop participants at the end of an engaging day of scientific discussions and presentations at The Spine, Liverpool.

On 17 June 2026, the MAGMA Lab hosted a Fluid-Filled Fractures Workshop at The Spine, Liverpool. The event brought together 25 researchers from across the UK and internationally, spanning disciplines from applied mathematics and computational modelling to volcanology, glaciology, and geomechanics.

The workshop was made possible through a Vanderbilt–Liverpool Joint Research Seed Grant, awarded to Prof. Janine Kavanagh (Liverpool) and Dr. Ravindra Duddu (Vanderbilt) for their collaborative project on phase-field fracture modelling with applications to ice-sheet dynamics and volcanic systems.

The day featured 14 presentations spanning the full breadth of fluid-filled fracture research, and round table discussions tackled three current themes: pathways to societal impact, the challenges and opportunities of industry collaboration in curiosity-driven science, and the role and risks of AI and machine learning in accelerating research. We prepared a workshop brochure that included all the Abstracts presented and the Scientific Programme.

The following day, attendees were invited to the Liverpool MAGMA Lab for a live demonstration of a fluid-filled fractures analogue experiment, showcasing the experimental facilities underpinning the Liverpool–Vanderbilt collaboration.

Post experiment selfie (from left to right): Dr Tom Chudley (University of Bristol), Dr Tim Hageman (University of Oxford), Professor Janine Kavanagh (MAGMA lab), Saskia Willar-Sheehan (PhD student, MAGMA lab), Dawid Rybak (PhD student, MAGMA lab), Dr. Ravindra Duddu (Vanderbilt University).

The workshop marked the culmination of the seedcorn grant but also the beginning of strengthening a broader interdisciplinary research agenda and lasting research community modelling fluid-filled fractures. Watch this space!