Research Topic: Biological Isotope Fractionation
What are the rules of biological isotope discrimination?
We try to understand the biological and environmental controls on the magnitude of this isotope fractionation. Many elements have more than one stable isotope, and these move through metabolic pathways at different rates. For example, in sulfate reduction sulfur-32 is kinetically faster than sulfur-34, and is more likely to be found in sulfide minerals that are produced by this process. But how much faster?
We focus our study on the isotopes of carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and sulfur.