The origin of Earth's volatiles - new constraints from isotopic analyses of meteorites

A key question of Earth's accretion is origin of the building blocks that contributed to Earth's volatile budget. As volatiles are needed for the emergence of life, the question is important as this guides our basic understanding of how habitable planets are formed. In particular, were Earth's volatiles sourced from inner Solar System materials or were they provided by asteroids with 'stray' orbits that originated from the more volatile-rich outer Solar System? To obtain new constraints on the origin of Earth's volatile inventory, this PhD project encompasses analyses of meteorites to determine variations in both mass-dependent and mass-independent isotope compositions of volatile elements, including zinc, cadmium, and tellurium, for various meteorite types and meteorite constituents (such as CAI's and chondrules), as well as terrestrial rocks. Samples from the Moon and Mars are also slated for analysis, to investigate the volatile sources for these bodies. To address this goal, the project involves significant hands-on analytical research in the MAGIC Laboratories at the Department of Earth Science & Engineering of Imperial College London. This includes sample preparation in the clean room facilities and high-precision isotope analyses with one of our three isotope ratio mass spectrometers.