Dr. Dongmei Yu

My research work primarily focuses on a dual approach of hydrothermal experiments and numerical modelling to gain quantitative insights into the diagenetic alteration of aragonite-calcite transformation and understand their reaction mechanism. Hydrothermal experiments are performed on samples of coral, bivalve shell and single crystal in two different experimental set-ups: autoclaves and multi-permeameter. In our kinetic model, we considered explicitly dissolution of aragonite, diffusive transport in the fluid, and precipitation of calcite. The developed model was linked to the performed autoclave experiments to qualitatively and quantitatively understand the role of dissolution-precipitation processes in the recrystallization, and to identify the rate-limiting process of experimentally induced aragonite-calcite transformation.