Prof. Francois Renard

François Renard has extensive expertise in experimental and theoretical geophysics and geochemistry. In the mid-1990s, at Indiana University, he developed theoretical models of rock deformation. In the early 2000s, he started a highly productive collaboration with physicists and geologists at the former Centre of Excellence for the Physics of Geological Processes at the University of Oslo and at the University Joseph Fourier in Grenoble. During this time, he researched the mineralization of carbon dioxide into carbonates, specifically in the context of geological carbon storage. He also studied how fluids circulate in the Earth’s crust and couple with rock deformation. In the 2010s, he initiated a partnership with the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility and several other large user facilities, leading to the development of rock deformation and fluid flow apparatuses capable of replicating conditions in Earth’s crust. These methods—4D (space + time) X-ray or neutron tomography—have been a groundbreaking advancement in rock physics and geomechanics. Since joining the University of Oslo in 2016, he has developed studies at the interface between geophysics and the physics of porous media, in the cross-disciplinary geoscience-physics Njord Centre, which he is currently leading.