Minerals as recorders of Earth and planetary processes

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Minerals record history, on Earth and other rocky bodies in the solar system. Minerals record their own formation conditions and subsequent events such as deformation, heating, and interaction with fluids, via their compositions, crystal structures, cation order-disorder and textural relationships. My long-term research goal is to investigate the evolution of Earth and other planetary bodies in our solar system, by examining minerals from selected locations on Earth as well as in meteorites and returned samples from the moon, and eventually from asteroids and Mars. My research will focus on two themes: 1 - Minerals as recorders of deformation: I will continue to lead the way in quantification of strain in minerals. I intend to quantify co-existing olivine and pyroxene in various settings, from the oldest solar system objects to evolved terrestrial samples. Studies will include chondritic meteorites as recorders of shock deformation on asteroids, martian meteorites as examples of deformation in a larger parent body, and mantle xenoliths as examples of deformation and dynamic recrystallization on Earth. Tandem grain size/strain measurements for olivine will elucidate mantle conditions. For olivine, pyroxene and terrestrial quartz, I aim to use 3D µXRD to compare deformation by meteorite impact (shock) against terrestrial tectonic deformation (strain), in order to discriminate between these effects. I will calibrate strain using minerals shocked to known shock pressures. These innovations will make µXRD a powerful probe of strain mechanism in Earth and planetary materials. 2 - Minerals as recorders of temperature: I will interpret and quantify minerals as thermometers for the early solar system and terrestrial mantle rocks, by making systematic observations of cation distribution (order-disorder) for key mineral suites using NMR spectroscopy and diffraction methods, as well as energy models. Studying the co-existing minerals melilite and fassaite will reveal the cooling histories of Ca,Al-rich inclusions (CAIs) in meteorites, and of an unusual group of terrestrial alkaline ultramafic mantle rocks which are chemically similar to CAIs. In both cases these minerals record a complex history of crystallization and subsequent heating and metasomatism (fluid interaction). Parallel studies of these physically disparate, yet chemically similar, environments may elucidate the poorly-understood process of metasomatism. Independent estimates of temperature from spinel, fassaite and melilite in the same CAI would provide parent body cooling rate estimates, useful for modeling early solar system evolution. This research will place students at the forefront of current debates on the formation conditions and thermal evolution of early planetary bodies, the extent and variation of shock metamorphism in planetary materials, and the genesis of kimberlitic and other mantle-derived magmas.