Hanika Rizo

My research aims to understand the early geochemical evolution of the Earth. This involves unravelling geological processes happening more than 4 billion years ago.

Some of these processes include the segregation of metal from silicate to form our planet’s metallic core, the crystallisation of Earth’s magma ocean, and the consequences of giant impacts for the geochemical evolution of the mantle.

To investigate these events, I analyse extinct isotope systems (e.g. 182Hf-182W) in mantle-derived rocks. These systems are powerful tools to study the early Earth because they are only sensitive to processes occurring the first tens to few hundreds of millions of years of the Earth’s history

Mantle-derived rocks older than 3.6 billion years are rare, complicating investigations on the early Earth. Together with my research team, we are currently working on various projects with the oldest rocks found in the surface of the planet.