Ryan Leary
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, NM·Earth & Environmental Science
Rivers flow downhill, so ancient river deposits record which way the land sloped long ago, and where mountains once stood. Geologists often "fingerprint" these deposits by dating mineral grains, especially zircon, to learn where the sediment came from.
- Fields
Earth & Environmental Science
- Topics
fluvial stratigraphy
paleohydrology
ancient rivers
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2027
What they work on
- Reconstruct paleohydrology, including flow depth, slope and water discharge, of Late Cretaceous to early Eocene river deposits in Laramide basins using quantitative fluvial stratigraphy.
- Test whether paleo flow depth tracks the changes in drainage length and area inferred from existing detrital zircon U-Pb provenance studies.
- Compare the Green River, San Juan and Uinta basins, where drainages are thought to have grown, shrunk and stayed constant, to bracket outcomes and control for regional climate.
More about the research
But this detrital approach has blind spots. It misses sources poor in zircon, can be fooled by recycled grains, and cannot tell whether sediment moved by river, wind or currents along a shore. This project checks those interpretations with an independent line of evidence: the physical features of the river deposits themselves.
Why it matters
This work tests and refines widely used methods for reading sediment origin and ancient landscapes from rocks. If river-flow reconstructions agree or disagree with zircon-based interpretations, geologists will better know how far to trust reconstructions of past mountain uplift and drainage networks in the western United States and elsewhere.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Alexander Pullen
Clemson University, SC·Earth & Environmental Science
Reconstruct the Miocene–Pleistocene sediment sources of the Beaufort-Mackenzie Basin using detrital zircon uranium-lead (U-Pb) dating and neodymium (Nd) isotope provenance analysis.
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.
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.
The school
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology: 3 labs on PI Pages, $80M a year on research, 21 research doctorates a year.
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