Isabelle Daniel is a mineralogist at the

Claude Bernard University Lyon 1 Claude Bernard University Lyon 1 (french: link=no, Université Claude-Bernard Lyon 1, UCBL) is one of the three public universities of Lyon, France. It is named after the French physiologist Claude Bernard and specialises in science and technol ...

in Lyon, France. She studies minerals under extreme conditions, such as those that exist in Earth's

mantle A mantle is a piece of clothing, a type of cloak. Several other meanings are derived from that. Mantle may refer to: *Mantle (clothing), a cloak-like garment worn mainly by women as fashionable outerwear **Mantle (vesture), an Eastern Orthodox ve ...

, as well as

biosignature A biosignature (sometimes called chemical fossil or molecular fossil) is any substance – such as an element, isotope, or molecule – or phenomenon that provides scientific evidence of past or present life. Measurable attribute ...

s of early life.

Education

Daniel earned a bachelor's degree in

Earth science Earth science or geoscience includes all fields of natural science related to the planet Earth. This is a branch of science dealing with the physical, chemical, and biological complex constitutions and synergistic linkages of Earth's four spher ...

s from the

École Normale Supérieure de Lyon The École normale supérieure de Lyon (also known as ENS de Lyon, ENSL or Normale Sup' Lyon) is a French grande école located in the city of Lyon. It is one of the four prestigious écoles normales supérieures in France. The school is ...

in 1989, and a master's degree from the same department in 1992. She completed her doctorate in Earth sciences at Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 in 1995, with a project entitled “Aluminosilicates at high pressure and high temperature: amorph, glass, liquid and crystal – A Raman spectroscopic study.”

Career

In 2003, Daniel was a fellow of the

Mineralogical Society of America The Mineralogical Society of America (MSA) is a scientific membership organization. MSA was founded in 1919 for the advancement of mineralogy, crystallography, geochemistry, and petrology, and promotion of their uses in other sciences, industry, ...

and in 2007 she was a fellow of the

Institut Universitaire de France The Institut Universitaire de France (IUF, Academic Institute of France), is a service of the French Ministry of Higher Education that distinguishes each year a small number of university professors for their research excellence, as evidenced by t ...

. Currently, Daniel is a professor of Earth sciences at the

Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 Claude Bernard University Lyon 1 (french: link=no, Université Claude-Bernard Lyon 1, UCBL) is one of the three public universities of Lyon, France. It is named after the French physiologist Claude Bernard and specialises in science and technol ...

in France, where she is affiliated with the Laboratoire de Géologie de Lyon and is the Dean of the Observatory of Earth Sciences and Astrophysics of Lyon. Daniel is a member of the

American Geophysical Union The American Geophysical Union (AGU) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization of Earth, atmospheric, ocean, hydrologic, space, and planetary scientists and enthusiasts that according to their website includes 130,000 people (not members). AGU's ...

and the

Deep Carbon Observatory The Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO) is a global research program designed to transform understanding of carbon's role in Earth. DCO is a community of scientists, including biologists, physicists, geoscientists and chemists, whose work crosses sever ...

, where she is chair of the Deep Energy Scientific Steering Committee. From 2012 to 2016 she served as a councilor for the

. She is now the vice president of the European Mineralogical Union, with a four-year term that will expire in 2020. In 2018 she was co-chair of the Deep Carbon Science in the Context of Geologic Time

Gordon Research Conference Gordon Research Conferences are a group of international scientific conferences organized by a non-profit organization of the same name. The conference topics cover frontier research in the biological, chemical, and physical sciences, and thei ...

Research initiatives

Daniel's research focuses on

mineral In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid chemical compound with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. ...

s and fluid-rock interactions under extreme pressure and temperature conditions. In 2013 she reported that the mineral

olivine The mineral olivine () is a magnesium iron silicate with the chemical formula . It is a type of nesosilicate or orthosilicate. The primary component of the Earth's upper mantle, it is a common mineral in Earth's subsurface, but weathers qui ...

rapidly splits water into hydrogen and water in a process called

serpentinization Serpentinization is a hydration and metamorphic transformation of ferromagnesian minerals, such as olivine and pyroxene, in mafic and ultramafic rock to produce serpentinite. Minerals formed by serpentinization include the serpentine group miner ...

, which commonly occurs at

mid-ocean ridge A mid-ocean ridge (MOR) is a seafloor mountain system formed by plate tectonics. It typically has a depth of about and rises about above the deepest portion of an ocean basin. This feature is where seafloor spreading takes place along a div ...

s. She is also interested in the types of volatile compounds that occur in

subduction zones Subduction is a geological process in which the oceanic lithosphere is recycled into the Earth's mantle at convergent boundaries. Where the oceanic lithosphere of a tectonic plate converges with the less dense lithosphere of a second plate, the ...

, and how those compounds are recycled. Her lab also investigates microbial biosignatures and how mineral surfaces may have impacted the emergence of life on early Earth. She is exploring the physical limits of microbial life and microbes that live under extreme conditions. In her work, she frequently uses advanced experimental and analytical methods including

Raman spectroscopy Raman spectroscopy () (named after Indian physicist C. V. Raman) is a spectroscopic technique typically used to determine vibrational modes of molecules, although rotational and other low-frequency modes of systems may also be observed. Raman s ...

and synchrotron X-ray diffraction.

References

Additional sources

Hydrogen squeezed from stone could be new energy source
{{DEFAULTSORT:Daniel, Isabelle 1968 births Living people People from Ambérieu-en-Bugey Women mineralogists French mineralogists 20th-century French scientists 20th-century French women scientists 21st-century French scientists 21st-century French women scientists University of Lyon alumni Academic staff of the University of Lyon Fellows of the Mineralogical Society of America