Chelsea Mackaman-Lofland
University of Tennessee-Knoxville, TN·Earth & Environmental Science
When mountains rise, they reshape the land around them. They shed sediment into nearby basins, create faults that can produce earthquakes, and can even block animals from migrating.
- Fields
Earth & Environmental Science
- Topics
tectonics
structural geology
thermochronology
- Grants
- 3 known grants, through Aug 2028
What they work on
- 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.
- Test whether western Anatolia's crust stretched along faults dipping in one direction or in two. Use thermochronology, which dates when rocks cooled, together with thermokinematic modeling of heat and rock motion.
- Determine whether thrusting in the Canadian Rocky Mountains was steady or pulsed. Use zircon fission-track and (U-Th)/He thermochronology on bedrock samples taken across the major thrust sheets.
- Link mountain loading to sediment pulses and erosion gaps in the Alberta foreland basin. Combine detrital zircon U-Pb dating, lag times and a flexural thermokinematic model.
- Determine the timing and amount of deformation on the Eastern Precordillera thrust front near San Juan, Argentina. Combine geologic mapping, basin analysis, geochronology and thermochronology.
- Test competing structural models for Argentina's seismically active broken foreland. Compare observed patterns of rock cooling and basin sinking with model predictions, aided by geophysical and earthquake data.
More about the research
This research reconstructs how mountain belts grew over millions of years. It reads the history recorded in rocks and in basin sediments, mainly with thermochronology, which measures when rocks cooled as they rose toward the surface and were exposed by erosion. Three field projects, in Türkiye, Canada and Argentina, use these tools to connect deep crustal processes to surface effects.
Why it matters
Identifying which hidden faults in west-central Argentina may produce large earthquakes could improve hazard assessments for cities such as San Juan and Mendoza and their infrastructure. Better ways to read mountain-building history from basin sediments could help geologists interpret basins that hold economic resources and records of past climate. The Anatolia work could clarify how mountains may have shaped ancient animal and hominoid migration.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Collaborative Research: Linking crustal and surface processes to their impacts on the biosphere, western Anatolia
NSF · Sep 2025 – Aug 2028
Collaborative Research: Linking fold-thrust belt activity to foreland basin response in the Canadian Cordillera
NSF · Sep 2024 – Aug 2027
Collaborative Research: Resolving thin-skinned and basement-involved deformation within a seismically active broken foreland region, San Juan, Argentina
NSF · Aug 2024 – Jun 2027
Closest labs
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.
Ryan Leary
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, NM·Earth & Environmental Science
Reconstruct paleohydrology, including flow depth, slope and water discharge, of Late Cretaceous to early Eocene river deposits in Laramide basins using quantitative fluvial stratigraphy.
Alexander Tye
University of Pittsburgh, PA·Earth & Environmental Science
Test whether lithospheric foundering explains Miocene subsidence and shortening of the Arizaro Basin and uplift and extension of the Antofalla Basin, using geologic mapping and measured stratigraphic sections.
The school
University of Tennessee-Knoxville: 16 labs on PI Pages, $387M a year on research, 426 research doctorates a year.
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