Maria ValdesCASE Affiliated Postdoctoral Scholar

Research Focus:

Isotope geochemistry and cosmochemistry

Email:

mvaldes@uchicago.edu

Office:

HGS 381

Biography

University of Chicago - B.Sc. Geophysical Sciences, 2011
Washington University in St. Louis - A.M. Earth and Planetary Sciences, 2014
Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium - Ph.D. Geochemistry and Cosmochemistry, 2018
University of Cambridge, UK - Fondation Wiener-Anspach Postdoctoral Fellow

Research Interests

I am a research scientist at the Field Museum of Natural History and the University of Chicago. My research focuses on, broadly, understanding the physical and chemical evolution of the Solar System and its rocky bodies (specifically Earth, Mars, the moon, and asteroids) through the study of meteorites, their components, micrometeorites, and mission-returned samples. I am especially interested in combining geochemical and petrologic methods to develop the most comprehensive models of Solar System evolution. Therefore, my work employs a variety of methods, including wet chemistry/MC-ICP-MS, laser ablation ICP-MS, µCT, µXRF, optical microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). 

Selected Publications

Dauphas N., Hopp T., Craig G., Zhang Z. J., Valdes M. C., Heck P. R., Charlier B. L. A., Bell E. A., Harrison T. M., Davis A. M., Dussubieux L., Williams P. R., Krawczynski M. J., Bouman C., Lloyd N. S., Tollstrup D., Schwieters J. B. In Situ 87Rb-87Sr analyses of terrestrial and extraterrestrial samples by LA-MC-ICPMS/MS with double Wien filter and collision cell technologies. Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry, accepted for publication.

Valdes, M. C., Bermingham, K. R., Simon, J. I., and Huang, S. Calcium isotope Cosmochemistry. Chemical Geology, special issue on Calcium Isotopes: Past lessons and future directions 571, 120396.

Valdes, M. C., Debaille, V., Berger, J., and Armytage, R. M. G. (2019). The effects of high- temperature fractional crystallization on calcium isotopic composition. Chemical Geology 509, 77-91.

Kato, C., Moynier, F., Valdes, M.C., Dhaliwal, J.K., Day, J.M.D. (2015). Extensive volatile loss during formation and differentiation of the Moon from Zn isotopes in crustal rocks. Nature Communications 6, Article 7617.

Valdes, M. C., Foriel, J., Moreira, M.A., and Moynier, F. (2014). The nature of Earth’s building blocks as revealed by calcium isotopes. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 394, 135-145.