James Kirkpatrick
University of Nevada-Reno, NV·Earth & Environmental Science
Subduction zones, where one tectonic plate dives beneath another, produce Earth's largest earthquakes and tsunamis. The 2011 Tohoku-oki earthquake off Japan slipped unusually far on the shallow part of its fault and caused a huge tsunami.
- Fields
Earth & Environmental Science
- Topics
subduction zones
megathrust earthquakes
2011 Tohoku-oki earthquake
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Aug 2029
What they work on
- Characterize where permeability and fluid flow are concentrated in the Japan Trench fault zone using temperature and pressure records from subseafloor borehole observatories at IODP Site C0019.
- Build background thermal models from measured core properties and interpret residual temperature and pressure signals to estimate permeability, hydraulic diffusivity and fault zone fluid pressure.
- Compare 2024–2025 observatory records with 2012–2013 data to test how fluid pathways changed over time and whether permeable intervals connect between holes about 40 meters apart.
- Map which fault strands slipped in large earthquakes, and how much frictional energy was used, by measuring the heat-driven thermal maturity of organic biomarkers in Japan Trench fault cores.
- Use trace element geochemistry and potassium/argon dating to match fault rocks to incoming sediments and test whether all fault strands failed recently or some are long inactive.
More about the research
Why did the fault behave this way? Two collaborative projects study the Japan Trench fault zone directly, using instruments and rock samples from boreholes drilled hundreds of meters below the seafloor. One tracks how water moves through the fault. The other reads the fault's past slip from the rocks themselves.
Why it matters
Large subduction earthquakes and tsunamis threaten coastal communities and critical infrastructure. Understanding how fault fluids and fault structure control shallow slip could improve earthquake and tsunami hazard assessments, and the open data and analysis tools can be applied to fluid flow in other fault settings.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Carl Brenner
Columbia University, NY·Earth & Environmental Science
Manage the U.S. Science Support Program Office for the International Ocean Discovery Program, helping U.S. scientists use ocean drilling platforms to study ocean variability, subseafloor life, Earth's deep processes and geohazards.
Carolyn Tewksbury-Christle
Fort Lewis College, CO·Earth & Environmental Science
Test whether slow slip and tremor are preferentially hosted by metasedimentary or meta-mafic rocks, using fieldwork, geochemistry, geochronology and microstructural analysis of three exhumed subduction complexes.
Christine Regalla
Northern Arizona University, AZ·Earth & Environmental Science
Extend the StraboSpot geologic data system to support group-level workflows, so multiple researchers can collect, store and interpret shared field and laboratory data collaboratively rather than individually.
The school
University of Nevada-Reno: 11 labs on PI Pages, $194M a year on research, 186 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
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