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Earth System Chemistry Lab
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A lab that reads how the Earth was born from the Earth's own rocks.
AboutAbout the lab
Reading the Earth's history from its rocks.
The Earth System Chemistry Lab analyzes the chemical and isotopic compositions of minerals and rocks to investigate how the Earth formed and how materials cycle on a global scale.
Based on the idea that the Earth itself is the best record of the Earth, the lab focuses its research on rocks from the Earth.
Its main target is the mantle. The lab collects mantle-derived magma itself, as well as mantle xenoliths, which are rocks carried up to the surface by magma as it rises, and extracts chemical information from them.
Isotope ratios are an important clue to material cycling, so the lab not only measures them but also continues to take on the challenge of developing the measurement methods.
Key terms
- Mantle xenolith
- A rock picked up from the mantle along the path of rising magma and carried up to the surface
- Isotope
- Atoms of the same element that differ in mass. Their ratios can reveal the origin and age of a material
- Fluid inclusion
- A very small droplet of fluid, such as water or carbon dioxide, trapped inside a mineral
NewsLab news
Associate Professor Masashi Arakawa systematically elucidates the origin of isotope-induced changes in Raman spectra
A paper by Professor Junji Yamamoto and students wins the Geochemical Journal Award
ResearchResearch themes
The lab aims to use rocks from the Earth to solve one of the biggest remaining mysteries in Earth science: how the Earth was born. No trace of the Earth as it was when it formed remains at the surface, but regions that have lain dormant since the early period of formation may still remain deep inside the Earth.
*Illustrative imageExploring the Hadean Earth
Mid-ocean ridge magmas, derived from the shallow mantle, and ocean island magmas, derived from the deep mantle, have completely different isotope ratios. By studying ocean island magmas in detail, the lab approaches what happened when the Earth was forming and the identity of the asteroids and meteorites that served as its building materials.
*Illustrative imagePrecisely measuring the depth of rocks
To determine how deep underground peridotite originally came from, the lab is developing an ultra-high-precision geobarometer that reads the pressure of tiny fluid inclusions trapped in the rock. It can now estimate the depth of origin of mantle xenoliths brought to the surface with a precision of about 0.1%.
*Illustrative imageGlobal carbon cycle science
The amount of carbon at the Earth's surface may be increasing through igneous activity but decreasing through the flow returning to the Earth's interior. The lab is developing a method to analyze, nondestructively and one by one, the carbon dioxide fluid inclusions widely found in rocks derived from the mantle wedge, such as those beneath Japan.
MembersFaculty
- ProfessorJunji Yamamoto
- Associate ProfessorMasashi Arakawa
- Assistant ProfessorKo Fukuyama
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Report an errorAbout the images
The top and research theme images are illustrative and were not taken at the lab. They are cropped from Wikimedia Commons images. Cropped CC BY-SA images are provided under the same CC BY-SA license as the original (version shown on each line).
- Top image: “Pāhoehoe Lava flow” Brocken Inaglory / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- Exploring the Hadean Earth: “Chondrite H5” Didier Descouens / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Precisely measuring the depth of rocks: “Peridotite mantle xenolith in basalt (near Mount Trumbull, Arizona, USA) ( )” James St. John / CC BY 2.0 (cropped)
- Global carbon cycle science: “Steam Fumarole Field ( )” U.S. Geological Survey from Reston, VA, USA / Public domain (cropped)
- Related lab (岩石循環科学研究室): “Metamorphic rock in the area at Sårjåstjåhkkå in Sulitjelma” Frankemann / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (地球進化史研究室): “Atapuerca dig site” Bcerrato1 / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (宇宙地球電磁気学研究室): “Surlari Geomagnetic Observatory, Three-axis magnetometer Bartington” Victor Blacus / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (地球内部ダイナミクス研究室): “The Day the Earth Smiled - PIA17172” NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI / Public domain (cropped)
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