Skip to content

Selected Projects

A customized titrator built to measure alkalility in the dolomitization expeirments conducted to constrain iodine incorporation

Iodine incorporation into dolomite

Iodate to calcium and magnesium ratio is a newly developed redox proxy. We are investigating the mechanisms of and controls on iodine incorporation into dolomite in order to refine this proxy and apply it to Precambrian dolomites.

A thin section image under light microscope showing skeletons and shells of carbonate biogenic materials

Carbonate Diagenesis of Shallow Marine Sediments

Shallow marine sediments are dominated by aragonite and high-Mg calcite, which, due to their metastability, are prone to post-depositional (diagenetic) alterations. This project focuses on the diagenetic processes (precipitation, dissolution, recrystallization) that occur during early marine diagenesis on the slope of the Great Bahama Bank.

More than 1000 x-ray diffraction (XRD) scans of sediments recovered by scientific ocean drilling expedition 166. We are using these data to constrain sediment dissolution below the seafloor.

Quantifying Carbonate Sediment Dissolution below the Seafloor

Carbonate sediment dissolution is an important process that regulates ocean chemistry. This project focuses on dissolution that occurs below the seafloor during early diagenesis and aims at quantifying its occurrence using the global dataset available through scientific ocean drilling.

Scanning electron microscope (SEM) images showing a few calcite microcrystal textures. Some of these images are for natural samples while others are for laboratoriy precipitates. This figure illustrates a hypothesis proposed by Hashim and Kaczmarek (2022) that rhobmic calcite microcrystals represent the structural form of calcite which is expected to form exclusively during meteoric diagenesis.

The origin of Calcite Microcrystal textures

A large proportion of Phanerozoic limestones are characterized by calcite microcrystals that exhibit a wide variety of textures and host microporosity. We are using laboratory experiments to better understand the origin of these textures and what they can tell us about the conditions under which calcite has formed.