About the project
Unusual reactions occur when Earth mantle rocks react with surface waters. Dense, reduced anhydrous rocks are transformed into easily deformed serpentinites with the generation of abiotic “gold” hydrogen and high pH fluids that can capture atmospheric CO2. This project will investigate on-going serpentinization fluids and minerals produced by these reactions.
A consistent suite of reactions occurs between peridotites from Earth’s mantle and surface fluids in a range of tectonic environments from slow-spreading mid-ocean ridges, subduction zones and ophiolites, obducted slices of ancient oceanic lithosphere. A series of hydration, oxidation and carbonation fluid-rock reactions convert dense anhydrous peridotites into low density, weak serpentinites that can continue to react when deformed to form unusual high pH and strongly reduced fluids that can capture atmospheric CO2 and produce abiotic “gold” H2, methane and longer chain hydrocarbons that provide food for specialist microbial communities. These reactions are proposed as an industrial mechanism for the safe capture and storage of anthropogenic CO2 as well as a potential source of sustainable hydrogen. However, one of the challenges in understanding active serpentinization is to decipher multiple phases of ancient fluid-rock reaction and deformation from on-going modern reactions.
This project brings together unique suites of fluid and drill core samples from the international Oman Drilling Project that have been built on and extended by operations by 44.01, a disruptive carbon storage start-up that recently won the 2022 Earth Shot prize. These unique sample suites will be interrogated using newly developed high spatial resolution trace element and isotope mapping by state-of-the-art laser ablation and time of flight mass spectrometry techniques that have been developed at the University of Southampton. These imaging techniques will enable us to distinguish and finger-print multiple generations of serpentine formation and deformation events including identification of the most recent and on-going reactions.
You will be supervised by the University of Southampton and other organisations, including Prof Richard Herrington from the Natural History Museum, and Dr Aled D. Evans from the National Oceanography Centre Southampton (NOCS).
