Dimitri Sverjensky

About

Dimitri Sverjensky is a professor in the Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. His research focuses on geochemistry, astrobiology, and the deep carbon cycle, with a particular interest in understanding how water in the deep Earth has influenced the evolution of the planet. Sverjensky specializes in theoretical geochemical modeling, collaborating with experimentalists and petrologists to integrate experimental data, petrologic observations, and theoretical models to investigate Earth's evolution and the processes occurring in other planets. His work has led to the development of a novel theoretical model for the behavior of water in the deep Earth, known as the Deep Earth Water (DEW) model, which elucidates the role of water at high temperatures and pressures in transporting carbon and other vital elements such as nitrogen and sulfur. This research has implications for understanding Earth's long-term habitability, the origin of planetary gases, and the formation of organic carbon species in subduction zones. Sverjensky's contributions include advancing the understanding of aqueous fluid-rock interactions, redox states of magmas, and the mechanisms of diamond formation, among other topics. His work is supported by collaborations with international researchers and has been funded by organizations such as the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the National Science Foundation.

Research topics

• Paleontology
• Chemistry
• Materials science
• Geochemistry
• Geology
• Composite material
• Inorganic chemistry
• Metallurgy
• Physics
• Environmental chemistry

Selected publications

• Subduction hides high-pressure sources of energy that may feed the deep subsurface biosphere

  Nature Communications · 2020 · 127 citations

  , potentially providing energy to the overlying subsurface biosphere in the forearc regions of convergent margins.

  DOI

• Subducted organic matter buffered by marine carbonate rules the carbon isotopic signature of arc emissions

  Nature Communications · 2022 · 36 citations

  isotopic signature with the fluid-rock ratios and the redox state in force in its subarc source.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Dissolution susceptibility of glass-like carbon versus crystalline graphite in high-pressure aqueous fluids and implications for the behavior of organic matter in subduction zones

  Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta · 2020 · 36 citations

  DOI

• Global Hydrogen Production During High‐Pressure Serpentinization of Subducting Slabs

  Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems · 2023-10-01 · 16 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Serpentinization is among the most important, and ubiquitous, geological processes in crustal–upper mantle conditions (<6 GPa, <600°C), altering the rheology of rocks and producing H 2 that can sustain life. While observations are available to quantify serpentinization in terrestrial and mid‐ocean ridge environments, measurements within subduction zone environments are far more sparse. To overcome this difficulty, we design a methodology to quantify and offer a first‐order estimat…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Oxidized Sulfur Species in Slab Fluids as a Source of Enriched Sulfur Isotope Signatures in Arcs

  Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems · 2024-06-29 · 15 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Recycling of oxidized sulfur from subducting slabs to the mantle wedge provides simultaneous explanations for the elevated oxygen fugacity ( f O 2 ) in subduction zones, their high hydrothermal and magmatic sulfur outputs, and the enriched sulfur isotopic signatures (i.e., δ 34 S > 0‰) of these outputs. However, a quantitative understanding of the abundance and speciation of sulfur in slab fluids consistent with high pressure experiments is lacking. Here we analyze published experime…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: An Interdisciplinary Study of Chiral Molecular Adsorption on Mineral Surfaces

  NSF · $253k · 2007–2010

• Modeling Deep Earth Fluids and Diamond Formation

  NSF · $380k · 2016–2020

• Collaborative Research: An Interdisciplinary Study of Mineral-Biomolecule Interactions

  NSF · $284k · 2010–2015

Frequent coauthors

• Robert M. Hazen

  Carnegie Institution for Science

  147 shared

• Christopher L. Jonsson

  Geophysical Laboratory

  74 shared

• Caroline M. Jonsson

  Umeå University

  74 shared

• I. M. Daniel

  Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1

  52 shared

• Henderson James Cleaves

  Life Science Institute

  49 shared

• Ding Pan

  Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

  48 shared

• Zixin Chen

  40 shared

• Namhey Lee

  Johns Hopkins University

  37 shared

Awards & honors

• Deep Carbon Observatory (funded in 2010 by the Alfred P. Slo…
• Enabling Knowledge Integration (ENKI) project, funded by the…
• DEW-MELTS project, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation…
• Modeling Deep Earth Fluids and Diamond Formation, funded by…

Similar researchers at Johns Hopkins University

• Julie K. Lundquisth-82
• Darryn Waughh-81
• Anand Gnanadesikanh-64