|
Now working in Exploration and Production for British Petroleum (BP) in Houston, Texas.
Contact information:
From September 2006 through June 2007, I worked as a Post-Doctoral Researcher in the Department of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences at Purdue University.
My work involved performing kinematic modeling of the Caribbean-North American plate boundary in the northeastern Caribbean. The modeling focused on interplate coupling, strain partitioning, and strain and stress rates within crustal blocks, through the inverse modeling of GPS and seismic source parameter data. Results of modeling will be used to evaluate seismic hazard in the Carribean.
|
||
I am interested in the deformation of the Earth's lithosphere and how it relates to earthquakes and faulting, By analyzing patterns of crustal deformation at the Earth's surface and the movement of faults, I am attempting to gain a better understanding of what is occurring below the Earth's surface.
The focus of my research has been the application of continuum damage mechanics to problems in lithospheric deformation. In particular, I use damage mechanics to simulate how the lithosphere behaves when tectonic stresses exceed the elastic limit, causing "damage" to occur and subsequently modify the rheological properties. This has a wide range of applications, including flexure and folding, post-seismic relaxation, and cataclastic flow.
I have also used crustal deformation measurements, mainly measurements of the movement of the earth's crust obtained using the Global Positioning System (GPS), to evaluate the regional strain and rates of slip occurring on earthquake faults. My research has focused on the eastern and southern San Francisco Bay region, and the Big Bend region of the San Andreas fault south of Bakersfield, California.
In
addition to using continuum models and crustal deformation measurements,
I use applied seismology to model the 3D crustal structure of the Calaveras-Hayward
fault transition. This research into the seismotectonics of this transition
is important to understanding fault segmentation and the seismic hazard
implications. |
|||
RESEARCH
|
|
|
GPS antenna collecting data for crustal deformation studies. |
|
I was involved in the Working Group on California Earthquake Probabilities
in the late 1990s and early 2000s. This group is a diverse cadre of scientists
from the public and private sector, all working together to develop 30-year
probability estimates for the major faults in California. My focus has been
on earthquake hazards in the San Francisco Bay region. Much of my work has
focused on the seismic hazard due to the Calaveras fault, and the Calaveras-Hayward
fault transition. This work has implications for seismic hazard assessment
in the East Bay, San Ramon, Santa Clara, and Coyote Valleys.
Earthquake information for all!
Educational material to help everyone understand earthquakes. What is a focal mechanism and how do you read them? |