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Origin of volatile elements
The presence of volatiles, elements with low condensation temperatures such as hydrogen, carbon or nitrogen, is a requirement of planetary habitability. Yet, their origin on terrestrial planets remain highly debated. Being inert and highly volatile, noble gases (He, Ne, Ar, Kr, Xe) are invaluable tracers of volatile sources on terrestrial planets. In particular, their non-radiogenic isotopes have kept remnant signatures of the planets building blocks.
I measure the noble gas compositions of Earth’s mantle-derived samples (oceanic island basalts and mid-ocean ridge basalts) as well as Martian meteorites to understand how and when volatiles were delivered to the Earth and Mars. |
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Composition of the Earth's mantle
Determining the Earth’s mantle composition provides critical information to identify different mantle reservoirs and subsequently understand how the Earth has evolved through time. I use the noble gas isotopic compositions of rocks from similar tectonic settings (e.g., mid-ocean ridges) to elucidate what dynamical processes are responsible for the small-scale mantle heterogeneities.
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Volatile cycling on Earth
Volatiles are continually exchanged between the Earth’s inner and outer layers, through degassing and recycling at subduction zones. The Earth’s mantle isotopic composition for non-radiogenic and radiogenic noble gas isotopes has integrated this history and can be used to understand the timing and efficiency of recycling and degassing.
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Analytical developments in noble gas mass spectrometry
In order to achieve high-precision measurements of rare noble gas isotopes in Earth’s mantle-derived samples (e.g., krypton isotopes, the non-radiogenic Xe isotopes), my work has focused on developing new techniques to overcome the low abundances and atmospheric contamination issues.
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