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Ian
Dalziel |
| Ian is one of two associate
directors of UTIG and Professor of Geological Sciences at
The University of Texas at Austin. He is a John J. and Katherine
J. Jackson Research Fellow for 2002-2005. Ian has dedicated
most of his career to understanding global tectonic processes
and to mapping out the geography of ancient times on a
dynamic
Earth. His 35 years of field experience have been devoted
to work in the British Caledonides, the Canadian Shield, the
Andes, and Antarctica. NSF-sponsored fieldwork in Antarctica
between 1995 and 1998 led Ian to propose that ancestral North America, known
to |
geologists as Laurentia,
was connected to South America, Africa, and Antarctica one
billion years ago by a large promontory, which he named the
Texas Plateau. The results of this work were published in
the January 1995 issue of Scientific American. Recently, working
with colleagues from the U.K. and Australia, Ian has turned
his attention to unraveling the complicated tectonic
history of Scotland, his homeland. Ian was president
of the International Division of Geological Society of America
from 1996 to 1997, has served as delegate to the Scientific
Committee on Antarctic Research of International Union of
Geological Sciences since 1987, and has served as the International
Secretary of the American Geophysical Union since 1996. [Dalziel
web page] |
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Ron
Steel |
| Ron's research aims at evaluating
the signatures of tectonics, sea-level change and climate
in fluvial, shallow marine and deepwater strata and has an
important outcrop component. Current activity focuses on fluvial
successions, shelf-margin deltas, tidal signatures and sandbodies,
the process of transgression, improving the lowstand model,
and fluvio-lacustrine systems. Ron is an AAPG Distinguished
Lecturer for 2005. [Steel
web page] |
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Sharon Mosher |
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Sharon's research involves structural
petrology and field-oriented structural geology. Her
primary research interests are in the evolution of complexly
deformed terranes, strain analysis, deformation mechanisms,
and the interaction between chemical and physical processes
during deformation. Sharon currently has four active
research areas: the Mesoproterozoic of Texas, the Australian-Pacific
oceanic plate boundary south of New Zealand, northwest
Highlands of Scotland, and the southwestern U.S. Mesozoic
Maria Tectonic belt. Sharon is a past President of GSA. [Mosher
web page] |
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Randall Marrett |
| Randy's research concentrates
on deformation processes in the upper continental crust where
folds, faults, and opening-mode fractures are the most important
products. This work is applicable to a wide range of human
concerns such as natural hazards (e.g., earthquakes, volcanoes)
and the flow of fluids through rock (e.g., hydrocarbons, water,
contaminants). Some common themes that relate his disparate
interests are quantitative field observations and analysis,
especially using techniques that address spatial and size
scaling of structures. |
Randy currently has on-going projects that
address active faulting and geyser eruption patterns in the
Central Andes of Argentina and Chile, detachment folding and
curved orogenic belt development in the Sierra Madre Oriental
of Mexico, and opening-mode fracturing
in numerous areas. Randy is an Associate Professor in the
Department of Geological Sciences. [Marrett
web page] |
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Don
Blankenship |
| Don uses both airborne and
ground-based geophysical techniques, including laser altimetry,
radar sounding, seismic reflection and refraction, and potential
fields methods, to investigate dynamics of large ice sheets
and subglacial geology. Much of his current research is focused
on understanding the West Antarctic rift system (including
the flanking Transantarctic Mountains) and the marine-based
West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Blankenship's recent aerogeophysical
investigations have verified that there is a strong correlation between |
subglacial sediments and ice streaming; these
airborne experiments also give indications of active subglacial
volcanism near the critical region where ice streams begin.
The airborne platform that he developed to simultaneously
acquire ice-penetrating radar, laser altimetry, airborne gravity,
and aeromagnetic measurements has become the foundation for
an NSF-sponsored national facility for airborne geophysics
in Antarctica (SOAR) operating from UTIG. Building on his
expertise in radar sounding and ice sheets, Blankenship is
involved in the planning of an unmanned space mission to Europa,
one of Jupiter's moons, which is thought to have an ice-covered
ocean that may host exotic life. He has served on several
definition teams for NASA's Europa Orbiter Mission, currently
planned to launch in 2006. Don is a Research Scientist at
the Insitute for Geophysics. [Blankenship
web page] |
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Steve Laubach |
| Steve uses quantitative petrographic and
other microstructural observations and principles of structural
geology and diagenesis to address questions about chemical
and mechanical interactions in sedimentary basins and processes
of fracturing and rock deformation. Fractures and associated
diagenetic features play important roles governing the success
of attempts to access natural resources in deeply buried sedimentary
rocks. Yet because fractures are challenging to sample and
have deceptively simple morphology, |
they
remain among the least well-understood geologic structures.
Steve is currently engaged in research in the western
United States, northeastern Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Texas,
and northwest Scotland. Steve
is a Senior Research Scientist in the Bureau of Economic Geology
and a John J. and Katherine J. Jackson Research Fellow for
2003-2005. He was an SPE Distinguished Lecturer in 2004. Steve
is the Principal Investigator for the JSG Scotland Field Workshop
project. [Laubach
web page] |
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