Earth and Environmental Sciences (SEES)

Profile

General

My interest in Earth Sciences dates back to high school where my main interests were maths, physics, biology and chemistry. During my time as an undergraduate at the University of Bucharest, Romania, I added to my interests list mineralogy, geochemistry, petrology, tectonics and structural geology.

My enthusiasm for geosciences was rewarded with several prizes at national student symposiums, 'Academician Dan Giusca' award for contribution in scientific research, travel grants such as 'L. Austin Weeks Memorial Undergraduate Grant' from AAPG 2007, Travel Grant EAGE 2008, Grant from the Life, Earth and Environmental Sciences Standing Committee (LESC) of the European Science Foundation 2008.

Participating at several international conferences was an important step in my future career development: AAPG's Energy Conference & Exhibition, Athens, Greece 2007, 70th EAGE conference & Exhibition, Rome 2008 (poster presentation), 33rd International Geological Congress, Oslo, Norway 2008 (poster presentation), 71st EAGE Conference & Exhibition, Amsterdam 2009 (poster presentation).

Collaborations with Other Universities

In 2008 I received an Erasmus Scholarship at the University of Turin, Italy for one semester. During my time there I have deepened my knowledge in mineralogical crystallography, metamorphic petrology and different analytical techniques, such as SEM, electron microprobe and cathodoluminescence.

In 2009 I spent one month at the University of Arizona as part of a collaborative project with the University of Bucharest, during which I had the opportunity to use some of their extraordinary laboratory facilities, including state-of-the-art Laser Ablation ICPMS.

Research Interests

I have worked at several projects as an undergraduate, most of them focused on metamorphic petrology, especially on HP rocks. The subject of my thesis was

The Exhumation and Erosion History of the Central-Western part of the Southern Carpathians from Upper Cretaceous to the beginning of the Tertiary

Thermochronology was used for dating samples took in a vertical transect of approx. 1000m. Zircons and apatites were dated using (U-TH)/He, the newest and most useful tool for dating the recent thermo-tectonic events that took place in the middle to the upper part of the crust.

The zircon ages ranged between 98 and 125 Ma and the apatite ages from 58 to 90 Ma. These ages underline two distinct tectonic events that took place in the Upper Cretaceous - Tertiary. Zircon He ages indicate the cooling of the crystalline basement below 180ºC contemporaneous or subsequent to the nappe stack, whereas the apatite He ages attest, most probably, the cooling below 65ºC associated with the exhumation that followed the nappe stacking. Summing it up, these He ages indicate a pretty old geomorphology of the Southern Carpathians also attested by fission-track studies, another low-temperature chronometer.

I am currently working for my PhD project on "The Onset of Modern Plate Tectonics".

Most plate-tectonic indicators suggest that modern plate tectonics was operational, at least in some places on the planet, around 3 Ga and that it became widespread by 2.7 Ga. However we are faced with three indicators (ophiolites, UHP metamorphism and blueschists) that suggest a much later starting date around 1.0 Ga. There is sparse evidence, however, of blueschists and possible ultrahigh-pressure continental crust as far back as ca. 600 Ma. This could. therefore, mark the onset of 'modern' plate tectonics or, alternatively, it could be related to preservation potential. Blueschists and ultrahigh-pressure rocks are notoriously difficult to preserve as they are highly metastable. Robust minerals, particularly rutile, tourmaline and zircon from within these rocks, however have a much larger preservation potential where they are eroded and deposited at detritus in later sediments. Both rutile and zircon can be dated by in-situ U-Pb techniques and all these minerals linked back to potential high/ultrahigh pressure parental rocks through a combination of mineral chemistry (including trace elements and geothermobarometry) and inclusion phases (e.g. coesite and omphacite in zircon). This project aims to develop these techniques using Laser Ablation ICP-MS and SEM imaging at Portsmouth University and EPMA at Bristol University.