Alexander Tye
University of Pittsburgh, PA·Earth & Environmental Science
The world's tallest mountain belts and highest plateaus sit on unusually thick, buoyant crust. Strangely, they lack the dense lower crust and mantle lithosphere (the rigid layer of Earth's upper mantle) found elsewhere.
- Fields
Earth & Environmental Science
- Topics
lithospheric foundering
delamination
orogenesis
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2027
What they work on
- 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.
- Constrain the timing and location of deformation and subsidence in the southern Puna plateau using geochronology and thermochronology, which date rocks and their cooling history.
- Use numerical modeling to determine how the thermal, compositional or structural state of the crust controls the style of foundering and the deformation it produces.
More about the research
One explanation is foundering, in which these dense deep layers detach and sink into the mantle. How foundering happens, and what marks it leaves in the rocks above, is still debated. This collaborative project tests these ideas in the southern Puna plateau of northwestern Argentina. Geological, geophysical and geochemical data there hint at several episodes of lithosphere removal.
Why it matters
This is basic Earth science. It aims to explain how mountain belts and high plateaus lose their dense deep roots and how that loss reshapes the crust above. The results could improve how geologists read the rock record of mountain building and interpret similar basins in other high plateaus.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Marissa Tremblay
Purdue University, IN·Earth & Environmental Science
Constrain when and where the Arizaro and Antofalla basins of the southern Puna plateau deformed and subsided, using geologic mapping, measured stratigraphic sections, and geo- and thermochronology.
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.
Jessica Stanley
University of Idaho, ID·Earth & Environmental Science
Quantify Cenozoic exhumation and relief growth in the upper Gallatin drainage using apatite (U-Th)/He and 4He/3He thermochronology, methods that date when rocks cooled near the surface, on valley-to-ridge transects of Cretaceous and Eocene intrusive rocks.
The school
University of Pittsburgh: 83 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 403 research doctorates a year.
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