Jenn Wade:

Graduate Student

Boston University

I am a doctoral student at Boston University, studying volatile (e.g. H2O and CO2) and trace element recycling in the Mariana and Central American arcs. I began my academic life at Boston College majoring in Geology and minoring in, oddly enough, technical theatre. I went on to a Master's at Michigan State University to study trace element mobility in incipiently altered volcanic rocks. I fell in love with Central America (and its beautiful volcanoes), and moved back to the east coast to dive deeper into the world of subduction with Dr. Terry Plank.

On this trip, I will be collecting rocks from several islands, which will hopefully yield a lot of fascinating phenocrysts, especially minerals with volatile-bearing melt inclusions. Melt inclusions have the potential to record the trace element and volatile contents of primary magmas. I am also trying to develop a water proxy using elemental analyses in mineral grains themselves (like clinopyroxene), which will help us estimate water in places where inclusions are rare. Volatiles such as water play a large role in magma generation at subduction zones; they affect how and at what temperature the mantle melts, how explosive a volcano is, and volatiles help to recycle elements through the earth by transferring material from a subducted plate, through the mantle, and back to the surface during an eruption.