Research

Experimental Aqueous Geochemistry

Our experimental research team focuses on many different perspectives of geochemistry using a number of tools:

• High and low temperature experimental aqueous geochemistry

• Mass-spectrometry

• Synchrotron radiation techniques (X-ray absorption spectroscopy)

These specific tools advance our understanding of:

• • The processes which take place in the subseafloor of the oceanic crust and deep-sea hydrothermal systems along the Earth's mid-ocean ridge system. These processes include, for example, sulfide mineralization, serpentinization and alteration of the oceanic crust, and phase separation of hydrothermal fluids.

• • Non-traditional stable isotopes (e.g. Fe, Cu, Zn, Ca, 33,36S) at elevated temperatures and pressures representative of seafloor and continental hydrothermal environments.

• • Refinement of metallurgy techniques that remove potentially hazardous elements and select radioactive isotopes (e.g. U and 210Pb) from ore, such as from the Olympic Dam, Australia. Effectively providing constraints on how to mitigate the dispersal of hazardous materials into the environment. 

• • The mobility of the bio-essential trace nutrients upon low temperature weathering of the oceanic crust, off-axis of mid-ocean ridge environments, at conditions indicative of early and modern Earth.  These data can be used to examine the process-specific potential of oceanic crust weathering as a significant feedback associated with changes in atmospheric CO2 and as a source of bioavailable nutrients to marine primary productivity.