One specific area of her research is how the chemical composition of magma and crystals that form during eruption can provide information about the amount of water present during the eruption and explain how explosive it was. She uses microanalysis and modeling of volatile diffusion along small melt tubes and embayments, found in olivine crystals. She has done field work around the ring of fire, Philippines, Nicaragua, Iceland, and across the southwest United States as well as the Aleutian Islands.[1][2] Plank serves on the Executive Committee of the Deep Carbon Observatory.