Carbonate, nano-minerals, and more
From Minerals to the Evolution of the Earth
Using mineral formation mechanism to constrain environmental conditions
Many of the sedimentary minerals form in specific environments. For instance, I use sedimentary dolomite as a proxy to understand the solution chemistry changes in both geologic and biomineral systems. In order to use these minerals as proxies, laboratory synthesis to understand nucleation and growth mechanism, and isolating individual factors controlling the precipitation are prerequisites. Through an integrated approach with natural samples, laboratory synthesis, nano-scale crystallographically/chemical examination, these minerals can then be carefully used as proxies to interpret the environments they form.
About me
I view myself as a low-temperature geochemist and mineralogist. I am a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, working with Dr. Jeff Catalano. I received my Ph.D. from the Department of Geoscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. My enthusiasm lies in the formation of our planet and other planetary bodies. How does the surface evolve to what we are seeing now? What can we learn about the surface processes from the Earth can be applied to other planets? I approach these questions from more of a mineralogist point of view.
Approaches
I study both natural samples and laboratory-synthesized materials. I use a suite of mineralogical analyses such as in-house and synchrotron-based X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) and etc, to understand the crystallographic and chemical properties. Geochemical modeling using PHREEQC and other tools written in Matlab/python/R.
