Victoria Alcock

I am interested in understanding chemical weathering processes in the present day and through geological time, and how these processes interact with the carbon cycle. I use geochemical tools such as isotopes and trace element proxies to track and quantify chemical reactions during weathering. I mostly work in the geochemical clean laboratories, and with instrumental methods such as mass spectrometry. 

My DPhil project focuses on using and developing rhenium and vanadium isotopes to track oxidative weathering reactions, particularly organic carbon and sulfide oxidation in shales. These reactions are important to understand and quantify, as they may act as geologically significant CO₂ sources to the atmosphere, and chemical weathering has traditionally been thought to be a net CO₂ sink. This has wider implications for the carbon cycle and Earth’s long-term climate.

I am supervised by Bob Hilton, Julie Prytulak, and Mathieu Dellinger, and funded through the NERC DTP.