Kevin Konrad
Oregon State University, OR·Earth & Environmental Science
The Pacific seafloor is covered with undersea plateaus, ridges and chains of extinct volcanoes. Many of them formed over hotspots, places where plumes of hot rock rise from deep in the mantle, the thick layer beneath Earth's crust, and melt.
- Fields
Earth & Environmental Science
Chemistry
- Topics
marine geology
geochronology
40Ar/39Ar dating
- Grants
- 4 known grants, through Feb 2028
What they work on
- Determine when the Manihiki and Hikurangi Plateaus formed, how long that took, and whether eruptions came in pulses, using high-resolution 40Ar/39Ar dating of their lavas.
- Test whether shallow or above-sea-level gas release from the Manihiki Plateau coincided with ocean anoxia event 1a, a worldwide episode of oxygen-poor seas lasting about 1.1 million years.
- Measure rates of crustal growth during two episodes when a mantle plume interacted with a plate triple junction as the Ontong Java Nui large igneous province broke apart.
- Test whether the Marquesas plume built the Liliuokalani Seamounts and Hess Rise, and the Pitcairn plume built Karin Ridge and the Mid-Pacific Mountains, using 40Ar/39Ar ages and Sr-Nd-Pb-Hf isotopes of dredged lavas.
- Determine whether the Mid-Pacific Mountains record the timing and direction of a plate motion change around 100 million years ago, combining ages, chemistry and seafloor shape to refine a Cretaceous Pacific plate motion model.
- Test whether the Ontong Java Plateau passed over the Samoan and Rarotonga plumes by dredging seamounts along modeled hotspot tracks on the plateau during a 43-day expedition.
- Test whether the plateau's thick plate produced low-degree melts with unusually strong enriched mantle (EM) chemical signatures, using geochemical analyses and 40Ar/39Ar ages.
- Equip the MARSSAM Facility with a refrigerated van for processing sediment and porewater and a light four-core multicorer for use on U.S. Academic Research Fleet vessels.
More about the research
Dating these volcanic rocks and reading their chemistry can reveal how tectonic plates moved and which mantle plumes have stayed active for more than 100 million years. It can also show whether giant eruptions changed the chemistry of the oceans. The three research projects focus on the Cretaceous and early Cenozoic Pacific. All rely on 40Ar/39Ar dating, which measures argon isotopes in rock to find when a lava erupted. A fourth award supplies shared seafloor sampling equipment.
Why it matters
Testing whether massive undersea eruptions caused a worldwide loss of oxygen in the ocean could clarify how large volcanic events change ocean chemistry and affect marine ecosystems. The age and chemistry data could improve models of past Pacific plate motion and of how long mantle plumes stay active. The shared sampling van and multicorer give oceanographers on smaller research vessels access to calibrated equipment and lower the cost of their fieldwork.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Timing and Formation of the Manihiki and Hikurangi Plateaus and Their Influence on Ocean Conditions
NSF · Mar 2026 – Feb 2028
Collaborative Research: Was early Cenozoic Samoa and Rarotonga volcanism suppressed when the Ontong Java Plateau drifted over the hotspots?
NSF · Oct 2024 – Jun 2027
Collaborative Research: Investigating Mantle Source Reservoirs and Cretaceous Plate Motions Recorded by Ancient Mid-Pacific Oceanic Rises and Seamount Tracks
NSF · Feb 2025 – Dec 2026
Closest labs
Lucien Nana Yobo
Texas A&M University-College Station, TX·Earth & Environmental Science
Determine the timing, duration and eruption rates of the Caribbean Large Igneous Province by U-Pb dating of zircon crystals with CA-ID-TIMS, using ash layers from ocean drilling cores and Colombian field sections.
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.
Alison Graettinger
University of Missouri-Kansas City, MO·Earth & Environmental Science
Determine at what depths silica-rich and basaltic magmas build up beneath Askja and how often magma is refilled, using plagioclase and clinopyroxene mineral analyses and gabbro xenoliths, chunks of deep rock carried up by eruptions.
The school
Oregon State University: 29 labs on PI Pages, $372M a year on research, 238 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.