Martha
Pamato
Research Interests
I am a mineralogist interested in studying the behaviour of minerals under extreme pressure and temperature conditions such as those in the Earth’s inaccessible mantle and core. I have an interdisciplinary geological background and experience with experimental and theoretical methods I use to study natural specimens to understand the structure and composition of the deep Earth and its evolution into a habitable planet.
In 2021, I obtained an ERC Starting grant for the project INHERIT (2022-2027), which aims to determine Earth’s primordial hydrogen isotopic signature and content of a unique set of worldwide, natural diamonds dating 3.5 to 0.09 billion years. Our results will be fundamental to pinpoint Earth’s water origin with long-term implications for understanding planet habitability, in our Solar System and beyond.
Learn more about INHERIT here
INHERIT Project - ERC starting grant
The origin of Earth’s water remains poorly understood despite important implications regarding the evolutionary history and internal structure of Earth and constraining the conditions for habitable planets to form. Comparing Earth’s original deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio (D/H) with those of Solar System objects can constrain on the provenance of water. However, the exact value for Earth’s primordial D/H is not currently known. Diamonds from the Earth’s mantle may be key as they contain trace amounts of hydrogen, are chemically inert and serve as robust time capsules capable of preserving their H content and isotopic composition back to 3.5Ga. The INHERIT project will employ a multi-faceted experimental approach to determining the primordial D/H ration of Earth through analysis of a unique suite of diamonds from around the world.
SINDIA Project - Marie Sklodowska-Curie (MSCA) fellowship
Sulphides are the most abundant mineral inclusions in diamond and are one of the best candidates to date diamond formation and investigate the primary composition of the mantle and associated physiochemical processes at conditions representative of diamond genesis, still a highly contentious issue. The SINDIA project combined, for the first-time, a non-destructive in situ characterization of sulphide inclusions in diamonds with homogenization experiments coupled with isotopic analyses to investigate their genesis and the evolution of the Earth’s interior through time. This project has advanced our understanding of the composition, origin and age of mantle sulphides, the origin and age of diamonds and has validated the mostly widely used dating system in diamond research.
Sulphide inclusions in diamond (Pamato et al., 2021)