Texas Tech University
Research
On-Going and Previous
"Imaging the Earth using precursors" (On-Going)
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I have several students using this method to image the lithosphere in different parts of the Earth. We are processing these data at unprecedented frequency content and are imaging features beneath the Pacific Ocean previously not imaged. There will be enough data using this processing to keep many graduate students working.
"Imaging the high plains 3-D structure with broad band seismic stations." (On-Going)
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We started a deployment of the seismometers across the Matador arch. We will keep them in a tight array to improve stacking quality and frequency content. We plan to keep rolling these stations for a few years to provide data for both graduate and undergraduate work.
Caprock Connections - Fall 2018 Issue
We all know California is falling apart, but Where? and How?
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The earthquakes in California are a constant reminder that the boundary between the North American Plate and the Pacific Plate runs through the State. In Southern California, the plate boundary is generally accepted to be the San Andreas Fault system, which is in fact a wide fault zone. The purple line on the figure shows the location of the San Andres Fault, which accommodates the northwestward motion of the coastal region of California and Baha California relative to the North American plate. Baha California was attached to the Mexican landmass but in recent time (geologically speaking) it has been rifted from Mexico. The system of transform faults (black lines in the figure) and rifts (red lines) through the Gulf of California unquestionably represents the plate boundary but as the fault system enters California the tectonic story becomes tricky. The figure shows topography of the southwestern US and northwestern Mexico and the bathymetry of the Pacific Ocean floor. The insert is a figure from a paper in revision that was submitted to the journal Nature Communications (Ainiwaer and Gurrola in review). This insert shows depths to the base of the lithosphere estimated using seismic receiver functions. The blue shading are areas where the lithosphere (the tectonic plates upon which the continents drift) is very thin. Small “pockets” of thin lithosphere appear to follow a similar pattern to the system of transform faults and small rifts that has ripped Baha California from Mexico. Implications are that the lithosphere is being ripped apart or eroded from the bottom up and this band of thinned lithosphere may become a plate boundary in a few million years. It is uncertain if this band of thinned lithosphere will replace the San Andreas as the boundary between the North American Plate and the Pacific Plate or if the Mojave Desert will become (or perhaps already is) a microplate between the North American and Pacific Plates.
