Crystal growth, deformation, and dissolution in ore deposits
I am the new Assistant Professor of Economic Geology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. My primary interest is applying fundamental crystal growth, dissolution, and deformation processes to understand ore deposit formation and critical mineral distributions.
Recent Research Highlight
"Disequilibrium reaction pathways and the twin-mediated growth of tabular forsterite during contact metamorphism of quartz-bearing dolomite". Available from Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology as an Open Access Article:
In this contribution we show that tabular olivine morphologies form by the twin plane re-entrant effect at very high supersaturations. We experimentally show that equant olivine is the end result of dissolution-precipitation textural equilibration driven by structural disorder.
The background image of this page is the view of the Alaska Range from the Reichardt Building, where the UAF Department of Geosciences is located.
Future Research Directions
The natural progression of my research interests (the making and breaking of crystals in ore deposits) has me excited to explore different types of ore deposits. I am eager to develop microanalytical techniques and geochemical models that will help scientists to interpret deformation and growth textures in these deposits to hopefully tell a story about how they formed. I'll continue to use experiments to try to understand the interplay between kinetics and equilibrium thermodynamics in economic geology.
A garnet crystal I precipitated from a carbonate melt.