Overview

Anat Shahar's research blends isotope geochemistry with high-pressure experiments to examine the Solar System's formation, planetary formation, core formation and planetary evolution. Stable isotope geochemistry is the study of how physical and chemical processes can cause isotopes—atoms of an element with different numbers of neutrons—to separate (called isotopic fractionation). Experimental petrology is a lab-based approach to increasing the pressure and temperature of materials to simulate conditions in the interior Earth or other planetary bodies.

Shahar's research also focuses on investigating how volatiles, such as hydrogen, get incorporated and partitioned into planetary bodies through the use of high-pressure experiments, isotope partitioning experiments, and analyses of natural samples.

Shahar received her B.S. and M. Eng. from Cornell University in geological engineering and geological sciences, respectively. She received her Ph. D. in geochemistry from UCLA. Before becoming a staff scientist in 2009 she was a Carnegie postdoctoral fellow.

Research

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