Nabaa Al Hashimi ’25, Chemical and Biological Engineering

Nabaa Al Hashimi ’25

Major

Chemical and Biological Engineering

Project Title

Carbonate Diagenesis During the Hirnantian Glaciation

Presentation Link

View Nabaa's Presentation

My research focused on studying lithium isotopes and different elemental abundances in shallow water carbonate rocks from the Baltics. Carbonate rocks are assumed to preserve the chemical composition of the seawater from which they formed, making them archives of the Earth’s past. Lithium isotopes have been used as a proxy for continental silicate weathering, the products of which drain into seawater. Past studies from the Higgins lab complicate this simple proxy understanding of lithium isotopes through the process of diagenesis, the physical and chemical changes that carbonates undergo as they form and are altered with time. To study diagenesis, I used a special dissolution procedure to avoid silicate contamination and then purified lithium out of the samples using ion chromatography. I also used mass spectrometry to look at the abundance of lithium isotopes and other elements in the samples, which is key to understanding how diagenesis has affected the geochemistry of these carbonates. This project allowed me to gain exposure to new lab techniques and to develop a better understanding of the Earth’s element cycles, which will be useful in my ongoing pursuit of research at Princeton and beyond.