Isabelle Daniel

Isabelle Daniel is a mineralogist at the Claude Bernard University Lyon 1 in Lyon, France. She studies minerals under extreme conditions, such as those that exist in Earth's mantle, as well as biosignatures of early life.

Education Daniel earned a bachelor's degree in Earth sciences from the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon in 1989, and a master's degree from the same department in 1992. She completed her doctorate in Earth sciences at Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 in 1995, with a project entitled “Aluminosilicates at high pressure and high temperature: amorph, glass, liquid and crystal – A Raman spectroscopic study.”

Career In 2003, Daniel was a fellow of the Mineralogical Society of America and in 2007 she was a fellow of the Institut Universitaire de France. Daniel is a member of the American Geophysical Union and the Deep Carbon Observatory, where she is chair of the Deep Energy Scientific Steering Committee.

Research initiatives Daniel's research focuses on minerals and fluid-rock interactions under extreme pressure and temperature conditions. In 2013 she reported that the mineral olivine rapidly splits water into hydrogen and water in a process called serpentinization, which commonly occurs at mid-ocean ridges. She is also interested in the types of volatile compounds that occur in subduction zones, and how those compounds are recycled.

Her lab also investigates microbial biosignatures and how mineral surfaces may have impacted the emergence of life on early Earth. She is exploring the physical limits of microbial life and microbes that live under extreme conditions.