Alexandra Pye
Arizona State University Campus Immersion, AZ·Earth & Environmental Science
Mountains record the history of the plates beneath them. Rocks near the California–Arizona border hold evidence of several tectonic events.
- Fields
Earth & Environmental Science
- Topics
tectonics
structural geology
thermal modeling
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2029
What they work on
- Reconstruct the tectonic and thermal history of mountains near the California–Arizona border by combining field observations, laboratory analyses of rock samples, and structural and thermal modeling.
- Test whether deformation events, episodes of rock folding and faulting, recorded in southeastern California continue across the border into Mexico.
- Determine how the crust responded to changes in subduction angle, the angle at which one plate sinks beneath another, in the period before the San Andreas Fault System formed.
More about the research
These events were set off when the Pacific plate changed the direction of its motion and the plate boundary reorganized. Geologists still debate when these events happened, how far they reached, and how much each one mattered. Answering these questions shows how Earth's crust responds when plate boundaries change. It is also a step toward finding areas that may hold mineral resources.
Why it matters
Knowing when and where past tectonic events reshaped the crust can help geologists narrow down which areas of the southwestern United States and Mexico may hold mineral resources. More broadly, the work could clarify how mountain belts respond when plate boundaries change.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Sean Regan
University of Alaska Fairbanks, AK·Earth & Environmental Science
Reconstruct how rocks along the Valdez Creek shear zone were deformed and in which direction they moved, using structural and kinematic analysis along two transects through the Denali Fault Zone suture in Alaska.
Chelsea Mackaman-Lofland
University of Tennessee-Knoxville, TN·Earth & Environmental Science
Test whether high mountains in western Anatolia delayed hominoid migration from Africa into Eurasia. Reconstruct basin history, crustal thickness from zircon geochemistry, and past elevation using proxy-based paleoaltimetry.
Francis Sousa
Oregon State University, OR·Earth & Environmental Science
Test whether the ancient Tyee river drained a large continental interior from western Idaho or began in the Klamath Mountains, using U-Pb and Lu-Hf analysis of zircon sand grains to trace sediment sources.
The school
Arizona State University Campus Immersion: 36 labs on PI Pages, $1.0B a year on research, 625 research doctorates a year.
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