Description

Since my first experience of holding an abyssal peridotite in my hand, I have had a fascination with the spinel group minerals. To this day, most, if not all, of my research projects involve spinel group minerals and/or other common oxide minerals. I am of the opinion that these accessory minerals, common amongst countless lithologies and environments across the solar system, can be powerful tools for unraveling the history of a rock beyond our existing understanding of them. Further, of the 50 critical minerals and elements defined by the USGS 2022 list of critical minerals, fifteen (in addition to many other more traditional commodities) are known to occur as major constituents in natural and synthetic minerals belonging to the spinel supergroup.

Although there has been much research over the years into the nature of and processes which can affect spinel group minerals within limited settings, tectonic environments, lithologies, and rock types (e.g., igneous vs metamorphic), there has yet been any substantive work which attempts to unify these disparate knowledge bases into a holistic understanding of the spinel group minerals. My goal is to attempt to find universal patterns and relationships between spinel group minerals and the physical-chemical conditions under which they are formed and modified.