Main profile

Pathikrit Bhattacharya

School: 

Earth & Planetary Sciences

Designation: 

Assistant Professor

Education: 

PhD, 2017 - Princeton University

M. S., 2011 - University of Western Ontario

M. Tech. (Applied Geophysics), 2009- IIT Roorkee

B. Sc. (Physics Hons.), 2006 - Banaras Hindu University

Specialisation: 

Fault mechanics, experimental and theoretical rock/fracture mechanics, high performance computation in earth sciences, fault zone hydrology, seismology, geo-statistics and inversion of geophysical data, Bayesian inference in correlated spaces.

Awards: 

Award for Overall Teaching Excellence (2020) - IIT Bhubaneswar.

Arnold Guyot Teaching Award (2016) - Princeton University.

Ontario Graduate Scholarship (2012), Province of Ontario, Canada (declined).

Central Board of Secondary Education 0.1% Merit Certificate (2001) in the All India Secondary Examination.

Publications: 

S. Shreedharan, J. Rivière, Bhattacharya, P., Marone, C. (2019), Frictional state evolution during normal stress perturbations probed with ultrasonic waves, J. Geophys. Res. Solid Earth, 124, 5469– 5491.

Bhattacharya, P., Viesca, R. (2019), Fluid-induced aseismic fault slip outpaces pore-fluid migration, Science, 364, 6439, 464–468.

Bhattacharya, P., Rubin, A. M., and Beeler, N. (2017), Does fault strengthening in laboratory rock friction experiments really depend primarily upon time and not slip?, J. Geophys. Res. Solid Earth, 122, 6389–6430.

Bhattacharya, P., Rubin, A. M., Bayart, E., Savage, H. and Marone, C. (2015), Critical evaluation of state evolution laws in rate and state friction: Fitting large velocity steps in simulated fault gouge with time-, slip- and stress-dependent constitutive laws, J. Geophys. Res. Solid Earth, 120, 6365–6385.

Nagare, R. M., Bhattacharya, P., Khanna, J., and Schincariol, R. A. (2015), Coupled cellular automata for frozen soil processes, SOIL, 1, 1, 119–150.

Bhattacharya, P., and Rubin, A. M. (2014), Frictional response to velocity steps and 1D fault nucleation under a state evolution law with stressing-rate dependence, J. Geophys. Res. Solid Earth, 119, 2272–2304.

Bhattacharya, P., Chakrabarti, B. K. and Kamal (2011), A fractal model of earthquake occurrence: Theory, simulations and comparisons with the aftershock data, J. Phys.: Conf. Ser., 319, 012004.

Bhattacharya, P., Shcherbakov, R, Tiampo, K. F. and Mansinha, L. (2012), Anomalous statistics of aftershock sequences generated by supershear ruptures, Res. Geophys., 2, 1, e6.

Bhattacharya, P., Phan, M. and Shcherbakov, R. (2011), Statistical analysis of the 2002 Mw 7.9 Denali earthquake aftershock sequence, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am., 101, 6, 2662–2674.

Research: 

I am a geophysicist broadly interested in problems of physics and mechanics of earthquakes. The inherent multi-disciplinary nature of earthquake physics has led me to gather research experience on a broad range of topics – fault mechanics, experimental and theoretical rock/fracture mechanics, hydrology, seismology, geo-statistics and inversion of geophysical data.

My recent interests include physics of friction in geomaterials, fluid induced fault deformation, fault zone hydrology and dynamics of faults under time variable boundary conditions. For more information on some of these projects please visit my personal webpage.

Teaching: 

At IIT, Bhubaneswar 11/2018 – 06/01/2021

Courses taught:

a) ES5L105 – Computational Geosciences
b) ES5P105 – Computational Geosciences Lab
c) ES6L203 – Borehole Geophysics
d) ES5L401 – Reservoir Characterization
e) ES5L204 – Engineering Geology and Rock Mechanics
f) ES5L416 – Heat and Mass Transfer in Earth System
g) CL6L214 – High Performance Computing in Earth System Science

Room No.: 

FC-07, School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Library Building

Mail ID: 

pathikritb@niser.ac.in

Personal Page: 

Friction is rough!

Group Members: 

PhD (co-supervised):

1. Krishnendu Paul (IIT Kanpur, with Prof. Santanu Misra)
2. Alexis Saez (EPFL, Lausanne, with Prof. Brice Lecampion)
3. Anshul Panwar (IIT Roorkee, with Prof. Kamal)

Masters (Present):

1. Bibhabasu Pradhan (2020-2021, IIT BBS)
2. Vivekanand Sahoo (2020-2021, IIT BBS)

Masters (Past):
Pritom Sarma (2019-2020, graduated, IIT BBS). Currently pursuing PhD at HUJI, Israel.
Adhaina S. James (2019-2020, graduated, IIT BBS)
Satyandra Sardar (2019-2020, graduated, IIT BBS)
Aishik Khatua (2019-2020, graduated, IIT BBS)