Carnegie Fellow Wendy Nelson joined DTM on October 1 after finishing her Ph.D. in geosciences at Pennsylvania State University. Her broad research interests focus on using the Earth’s magmatic record to understand the evolution of the crust and mantle. Nelson’s graduate work was on mantle plume dynamics beneath the East African rift system over the past 30 million years. Specifically, she used a variety of geochemical data, including whole-rock major and trace element concentrations, Sr-Nd-Pb-Hf-Os-He isotopes, and mineral composition from mafic lavas, to better understand the origins of two chemically and behaviorally distinct mantle plumes and how they contributed to the tectonic and volcanic evolution of the area.

While at DTM, Nelson will continue to use geochemical techniques to understand East Africa, focusing on the role of recycled material in mantle plume reservoirs as recorded in melt inclusions and pre- to post-rifting evolution of the lithosphere preserved in mantle xenoliths. Nelson will also investigate craton formation and evolution by means of Re-Os, L-Hf, and Sm-Nd isotopes fom 2.7 Ga dikes and accompanying mantle xenoliths from the Superior craton, Canada.