CURRENT RESEARCH:

SEDIMENTARY GEOLOGY AND TECTONICS

Sedimentation Processes, Crustal Deformation, and Deep-Time Earth History

Current research is aimed at such varied topics as how sedimentation responds to sea-level change, deformation and other phenomena; mechanisms of crustal extension, with particular reference to the low-angle normal fault paradox; and the geology of the Neoproterozoic Era, an interval of time that is unusual for its climatic extremes and as a threshold in the history of life.

Opportunities are available at Columbia for students to learn about and to undertake projects in these and other aspects of sedimentary geology and tectonics.

Stratigraphic Response to Deformation and Sea-Level Change in the Gulf of Suez, Egypt

The Gulf of Suez, Egypt provides a unique opportunity for evaluating how sedimentation responds to crustal deformation and sea-level change in a setting in which both are known to have been important. A project currently being developed in collaboration with Dr Ahmed El-Barkooky at the University of Cairo will involve physical stratigraphic and structural mapping, sedimentology, high-resolution Sr isotopic dating, biostratigraphy, and cyclostratigraphy to investigate how patterns of sedimentation and erosion relate to the propagation of faults and folds, the tilting of fault blocks, and independently quantified sea-level change during the early Miocene. Options are being explored for co-ordinating outcrop studies with a subsurface project.

Petroleum Research Fund (American Chemical Society)

54919-ND8, U/Pb–40Ar/39Ar coupling approach for the reconstruction of paleo-river systems: A case study of the Siluro-Devonian Old Red Sandstone of Scotland, 2015-2017.

The project will involve a geochronological test of the idea that the Old Red Sandstone represents the deposits of a regional-scale river system draining the Caledonides of Greenland and Norway, comparable to the way in which the Indus and Ganges rivers drain the Himalaya today. We are interested also in the related issue of how basins developed through a combination of strike slip, extension and orogen-parallel crustal shortening. The project is being spearheaded by Michael J. DeLuca as part of his Ph.D. research.

COCORP Utah Line 1 from Von Tish et al. (1985)
I am lead proponent for an International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP) initiative to test the extensional detachment paradigm in the Sevier Desert basin, Utah. A priority in 2017 is to seek funds to acquire geophysical data to evaluate the character of the sub-Tertiary contact, and to provide 3–D context for a coring project at the ARCO Hole-in-Rock #1 well. See the Scientific Drilling workshop report. [download PDF 1.0 MB]

COCORP Utah Line 1 from Von Tish et al. (1985)