Research
Orange carbonate globules in Martian meteorite Allan Hills 84001. Credit to NASA.
Carbonate Stability in Martian Magmas
Martian meteorite Allan Hills 84001 is an igneous cumulate rock with carbonate globules. To better understand the climate of Mars during the late Noachian and early Hesperian (3-4 billion years ago), when there was liquid water on the Martian surface, we are conducting high-temperature, petrological experiments to determine the thermal stability of carbonates in simulated Martian magmas.
Serpentinization in the Eridania Basin
The Eridania Basin on Mars is hypothesized to have been an ice-covered sea billions of years ago. It would have contained more water than all of the other lakes and channels on Mars combined. We used visible-to-near-infrared (VNIR) spectroscopy on Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) images to explore the mineralogy of the region and its potential to have experienced hydrothermal alteration.
CRISM image in Gorgonum Chaos of the Eridania Basin with raised chaotic terrain that contained detections of hydrothermal minerals, like serpentine. False color image.
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft captured this image of a volcanic eruption on Io's surface as it passed Jupiter. Credit to NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
 Sulfur Degassing on Io
Io, Jupiter's moon, is the most volcanically active body in our Solar System and its atmosphere is predominantly SO2 gas. We are using thermodynamic modeling software to better understand the nature of degassing on Io and its connection to volcanic observations from remote sensing.