Chemistry Seminar: Raman Hyper-Spectral Imaging of Meteorites, Meteorite Impacts, & Art

Friday, May 4, 2018

11:00 AM-12:00 PM

Karl Booksh, PhD, University of Delaware

"Raman Hyper-Spectral Imaging of Meteorites, Meteorite Impacts, and a Little Bit of Art"

Hyper-spectral Raman imaging with multivariate curve resolution is employed to determine the underlying chemical composition of three interesting samples. A high pressure polymorph of TiO2 is determined to be a geomarker of large pre-Cambrian asteroid impacts. These large asteroids stuck the Earth with greater than 10 GPa pressure causing the impacted rocks to vaporize and reform as high-pressure polymorphs. The geology of Mars is still not well known; Raman spectrometers will be deployed on the Mars2020 mission to better investigate the near-surface minerology. Martian meteorites provide a random sampling of the minerology and a test sample for the efficacy of Raman spectroscopy on future rovers. Raman imaging is applied to the analyses of two Martian meteorites, a chondrite meteorite, and a synthetic surface sample to differentiate between biotic carbonates and abiotic minerals. Minerals, natural and synthetic, are employed as pigments in historic paints. Raman imaging is applied to paint samples from the Chinese Forbidden City to determine polymorphs of Cu2Cl(OH)3- information that will provide understanding in the origin and manufacturing of these paints.

Contact Information

Haifeng (Frank) Ji
215.895.2562
hj56@drexel.edu