214A Seismology

61 Route 9W - PO Box 1000

Palisades

NY

10964-8000

US

renik@ldeo.columbia.edu

My dissertation is motivated by the question of how the continental crust extends, in particular the low-angle normal fault paradox.  Numerous normal faults dip at low angles, yet the general interpretation of active faulting at such dips conflicts with rock mechanical theory.  A type locality for this puzzle and for one possible solution – the rolling hinge model – is Death Valley, California, which underwent peak extension in Miocene time.  With sequentially active splays that rotate through a migrating “hinge” and root in a single surface, the rolling hinge model both explains the observed low dips and enables planes to have dipped more steeply while active.  The applicability to Death Valley, however, is contested.  Thus, three potentially viable models remain: active low-angle faulting, traditional high-angle faulting, and the rolling hinge.  The models differ fundamentally in their predictions of extensional magnitude and timing.  My dissertation aims to evaluate these predictions using palinspastic reconstruction and thermochronology.

Additional interests of mine include strike-slip faults, fold and thrust belts, paleoseismology and tectonic geomorphology, and the Pacific-North American plate boundary.  I gained experience in the interpretation of seismic reflection data through an internship at ExxonMobil in the summer of 2007.

Publications

Renik, B., Christie-Blick, N., Troxel, B.W., Wright, L.A., and Niemi, N.A., 2008, Re-evaluation of the middle Miocene Eagle Mountain Formation and its significance as a piercing point for the interpretation of extreme extension across the Death Valley region, California, U.S.A.: Journal of Sedimentary Research, v. 78, p. 199-219.

Christie-Blick, N., Anders, M.H., Wills, S., Walker, C.D., and Renik, B., 2007, Observations from the Basin and Range Province (western United States) pertinent to the interpretation of regional detachment faults, in Karner, G.D., Manatschal, G., and Pinheiro, L.M., eds., Imaging, Mapping and Modelling Continental Lithosphere Extension and Breakup: Geological Society of London, Special Publication 282, p. 419-439.

Renik, B., Broecker, W.S., Hajdas, I., and Bonani, G., 2001, Uses of C-14 data in a transect of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge: HPK, Hönggerberg Institute of Particle Physics Annual Report.