Helen's Project Page

Who:  I was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, and have lived here my whole life. I’m thankful for the opportunity to attend the University of Utah and take part in the ACCESS program. In my free time, I like to draw and paint, and more specifically, illustrate mini-stories and comics.

My scientific/engineering interests:  I have a strong passion to learn first-hand how mathematical modeling can be used as a tool to solve the environmental challenges facing Utah communities today. Having grown up in Salt Lake City, I take a special interest in the environmental issues that are unique to the Great Basin region.

Academic goals:  I’m an undergraduate student working on an Applied Mathematics degree and am considering a double major in Geophysics. I am currently undecided on what I would like to do after I earn my undergraduate degree.

Career goals:  I am eager to work in a field where I can be a scientific advocate for our state’s ecosystem and help fight the climate crisis.

Studying the composition of igneous rocks found on oceanic islands or at oceanic ridges is crucial in understanding the composition of the mantle, since there is no way to directly sample the mantle source of magmas. Preliminary analyses performed on three cumulative igneous rocks collected on the Santo Ant ã o island of the Cabo Verde archipelagos indicate they crystallized into strikingly peculiar mineral compositions and assemblages. These features indicate the parental magma is particularly poor in silica. Understanding why these samples crystallized the way they did could reveal information about the regional mantle, and possibly new information about the geodynamical processes that resulted in the formation of the Cabo Verde archipelagos. I used the bulk compositions of the samples and the major element compositions of minerals to determine the mineral proportions for each individual sample. I also run thermodynamical simulations of magma fractionation with the program alphaMELTS and will compare the results with the calculated mineral assemblages to determine the pressure and temperature conditions, as well as the chemical compositions of the magma that can produce the studied samples. Finally, trace element compositions of minerals seem to indicate that the parental magma is potentially derived from a CO2-rich mantle source. The implications of these results will be discussed in the poster.