Kai Wünnemann
Geology
Free University of Berlin
Germany
Biography
Since 1 May 2017 Professor for impact and planetary physics at the Department of Earth Sciences at FU Berlin Deputy head of the Science Programme "Evolution and Geoprocesses" and head of the section "Impact and Meteorite Research" at MfN Principal Investigator in several projects of the collaborative research centre Transregio-170 "Late Accretion onto Terrestrial Planets": A4 - Formation and evolution of large impact basins on the moon, C2 - Modelling giant impacts and the subsequent thermochemical evolution of liquid metal in a convecting magma ocean, C4 - From the Moon-forming impact to the era of late bombardment: the thermochemical evolution of the early Earth–Moon system Graduate Programme Director of the collaborative research centre Transregio-170 "Late Accretion onto Terrestrial Planets"
Research Interest
Main Research Areas: Investigation of impact processes in the solar system with computer simulations, improved understanding of the highly dynamic processes during the collision of extraterrestrial bodies with planetary surfaces, focus is on crater formation and collapse Ejecta ballistics and ejecta plume Formation of impact melt and shock metamorphism Oceanic impacts and the formation of tsunamis
Publications
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Ormö J., Melero-Asensio I., Housen K., Wünnemann K., Elbeshausen D., and Collins G. S. (2015), Scaling and reproducibility of craters produced at the Experimental Projectile Impact Chamber (EPIC), Centro de AstrobiologÃa, Spain, Meteoritics & Planetary Science 50, 2,067–2,086.
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Zhu Meng-Hua, Wünnemann K., Potter R. W. K. (2015), Numerical Modeling of the Ejecta Distribution and Crater Formation of the Orientale Basin on the Moon, Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, 120, 2118-2134.
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Wünnemann K., Zhu Meng-Hua, Stöffler D. (2016), Impacts into Quartz Sand: Crater Formation, Shock Metamorphism, and Ejecta Distribution in Laboratory Experiments and Numerical Models, Meteoritics & Planetary Science, DOI: 10.1111/maps.12710.
