The Experimental Geochemistry lab at IU Indianapolis studies the interactions of minerals, melts, and fluids at high temperatures and pressures corresponding to a wide range of geological processes from crustal melting and vaporization caused by asteroid impacts on Earth’s surface, to the alteration of high pressure minerals by melts and fluids in Earth’s interior.
We research these processes by identifying outstanding problems from natural samples, then designing and implementing laboratory experiments to try to answer those questions.
The lab is equipped with an aerodynamic levitation laser furnace to simulate extreme temperatures relevant to impact plumes ( up to 3000 °C), and a piston cylinder apparatus to simulate pressures and temperatures in the lower crust and upper mantle (up to 25 kbar and 1600 °C).
News from the lab
Welcome to our new group members David Wallington and Stuart Kenderes!
Congratulations to Ruiguang Pan for passing his dissertation defense! Well done Pan!!
Cam was named a 2021-2022 Mineralogical Society of America Distinguished Lecturer. She is the first Peter R. Buseck Distinguished Lecturer for New Directions in Mineralogy and Petrology!
M.Sc. student, Ian Marrs, awarded a 2021-2022 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship based on his proposal to study the compositional evolution of crustal material (both felsic and mafic) following impact events in high temperature containerless experiments. Congratulations on this amazing achievement, Ian!!
More research from our group was published in Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta recently –> Evaporation-induced copper isotope fractionation: Insights from laser levitation experiments
Ph.D. student Ruiguang Pan published his research in Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology –> Thermodynamic modeling of high-grade metabasites: a case study using the Tso Morari UHP eclogite
Ian Marrs was awarded the 2020-2021 Mirsky Fellowship from the Earth Sciences Department at IUPUI and the 2020-2021 Andromeda Movement Scholarship! Congratulations, Ian!!
Lindsey Powell won best poster at the 2019 IUPUI Student Research and Engagement Day! Lindsey’s UROP research project is on impact ejecta spherules from the the newly described Tanis site where the moments after the Chicxulub impact are extremely well preserved.
AGU 2018 – Peng Ni is presenting collaborative work between IUPUI and the Carnegie Institute on Cu isotope fractionation during tektite formation. Watch this video describing the research he will present at the Fall AGU meeting.
Cam gave Saturday Morning Science talk at the University of Missouri about some research from the group. Click here to watch, but fast-forward to 17:07!
Seconds after impact: Insights into the thermal history of impact ejecta from diffusion between lechatelierite and host glass in tektites and experiments was recently published in Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta.
Check out the most recent season of Space’s Deepest Secrets on the Science Channel to see our lab in action! You can watch the episode here: Dark Origins of the Moon.