Principal investigators Jaana Halla and Arto Luttinen
I am fascinated about Early Earth – the poorly understood youth of our planet when the Moon formed, life began, and the first continents rose from the oceans. Early Earth was different from our familiar home inside and outside, which renders geological research a challenging enterprise. Together with colleagues I have unraveled the mysterious beginning of the plate tectonic processes that have a controlling influence on Earth’s surface conditions.
My research focuses on the origin of large volcanic eruptions. Geochemical compositions of lava successions reveal what happened in subsurface magma chambers prior to eruptions and how magmas formed deep underneath Earth's crust. I am particularly interested in the greatest terrestrial magma eruptions, so-called flood basalts, which have cause global environmental destruction in the past, but which have not yet occurred during human existence.