PhD in Geochemistry

The Department of Earth Sciences is looking for a highly motivated PhD candidate with a MSc background in Earth Sciences, Geochemistry or other appropriate fields./nYou will work on the project “Impact of terrigenous mineral input on marine silicate alteration and element cycles”. /nIn this 4-year study, you will investigate mineral dissolution and precipitation rates using various experimental set-ups, that represent the diversity of coastal systems (i.e. beach, shelf) in which silicate alteration occurs./nIn these experiments, you will test the dissolution behavior of the globally most common reactive rock types, that are volcanics, siliciclastic rocks and highly weathered minerals, such as metal-(hydr)oxides and clays./nIdentification of reaction pathways will be done via fluid and solid element as well as non-traditional stable isotope (Si, K) analyses./nThis PhD project is part of the ‘SILICYCLE’ grant, awarded to Dr Sonja Geilert under the Vidi scheme of the Dutch Research Council (NWO)./nThe department and its facilities are located at Utrecht Science Park, Utrecht, Netherlands./nA personalised training programme will be set up, about 20% of your time will be dedicated to this training component, which includes following courses/workshops as well as training on the job in assisting in the Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes of the department at Utrecht University.