Kirt focuses on understanding carbon compound transformations during serpentinization using fluids from the Semail Ophiolite in the Sultanate of Oman. Kirt uses measurements of carbon and other species, collected by the GEOPIG group, to calculate activities for compounds involved in carbon redox reactions of abiotic and biological interest (using the software EQ3/6) in order to quantify the available Gibbs free energy for various carbon redox reactions and attempt to determine the temperatures, pressures, and fluid compositions carbon species may have last equilibrated at within the system. These calculations provide information on the metabolic energy yield and hypotheses for where different carbon compounds were generated in the system or reaction progress.
