Marc Halfar

Background

About Marc Halfar

I am a PhD candidate in the Isotope Geochemistry and Cosmochemistry Group of the Department of Earth Sciences at ETH Zürich. My research focuses on refining the spatial and temporal record of primordial geochemical signatures in Earth’s Archaean and modern mantle. For this I mainly use the short-​lived 146Sm-142Nd radiogenic isotope system. Due to the short half-​life (101 Ma), this system is a powerful tool to investigate magmatic fractionation processes in the silicate Earth that occurred in the first ca. 500 million years of Earth’s history. By conducting ultra-​high precision measurements of the 142Nd compositions of modern and Archaean-​aged rocks using thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS), I try to put constraints on the transition from Earth’s early state to the modern. This includes the persistence of Hadean-​aged signatures in the mantle, locally and globally, as well as important processes such as the onset of modern-​style plate tectonics and crustal differentiation.