I love running experiments to figure out how rocks form and evolve. Deciding how to set up experiment to get the information you need takes creativity and the most fun experiments produce unexpected results. Here are photos of equipment I use, some interesting experimental run products, and micrographs of natural samples I am working on.
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- Beamline 16-BM-B, Argonne National Lab
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- An end-loaded Griggs apparatus at Brown
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- Dynamically recrystallized ilmenite deformed in a Griggs apparatus
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- Ilmenite-olivine aggregates deformed in shear
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- Wicked textures around alumina chips in a contaminated ilmenite-olivine aggregate experiment
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- A Rockland Research piston cylinder apparatus
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- False color backscatter electron micrograph highlighting Mg# variations in an annealed ilmenite-olivine aggregate
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- Backscatter image showing an orthopyroxene layer in a hydrous melt-rock reaction experiment
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- Dendritic quench growth and laser ablation pits in a high-Ti trace element partitioning experiment
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- Laser ablation pits in olivine, orthopyroxene and clinopyroxene in a peridotite from Trinity ophiolite
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- Vesiculated alkali-olivine basalt suspended in a carbonate mudstone from Jayu Khota crater, Bolivia
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- Mylonitic dunite from Lunar Craters volcanic field, Nevada
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- Another dunite from Lunar Craters
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- Forsterite in Bishopville Aubrite. The white phases are enstatite and albite
