Research

Tectonics and geochronology research at UC Santa Barbara

We combine field and laboratory work to date the processes that build and modify continental crust. Choose an area below to see the projects, funding and collaborators.

Snow-covered peaks of the Himalaya above a dry brown ridge

Himalayan tectonics and geochronology

Himalayan Tectonics

How the middle crust deforms, melts and is exhumed in a large, hot collisional orogen, studied through the Main Central Thrust in Nepal, the Ama Drime Massif in southern Tibet and the Leo Pargil Dome in northwest India.

A field camp tent on the ice with the Transantarctic Mountains behind

Insights into the tectonic evolution of Antarctica

Antarctic Tectonics

Lamprophyres and alkaline magmatism in the Ross Orogen, used to test how the deep crust founders at the end of subduction and how the Gondwana margin evolved.

Rare earth element mineralization

Rare Earth Element Mineralization

Where and when rare earth phosphates form, from Joshua Tree National Park and Music Valley to the carbonatite and ultrapotassic rocks of Mountain Pass, with newer work in Colorado, Nevada and Tanzania.

Mass spectrometers and a laser ablation system in the UCSB laboratory

Developing new methods in petrochronology

New techniques in geochronology

Reference materials for monazite and allanite Th-Pb dating, and the laser ablation and mass spectrometry capabilities at UCSB, including the new LA-ICP-ToF-MS.