Coordinators

Jan Tullis conducts experimental investigations of the deformation mechanisms, microstructures and rheology of single and polyphase rocks over a wide range of conditions, equivalent to those from the shallow to the deep crust and upper mantle. By characterizing the stress and strain dependence of deformation microstructures and crystallographic preferred orientations, and determining flow laws and piezometer relations, a powerful set of tools is available to interpret the thermomechanical history of naturally deformed rocks and to model crustal and upper mantle deformation under various conditions. Together with collaborators her experiments also investigate the influence of fluids and chemical environment on deformation and the mutual interactions of deformation and phase changes. (Brown University)

Holger Stünitz combines field structural geology with experimental rock deformation. His research focuses on the processes and mechanisms of deformation, including the interaction of deformation and mineral reaction (or chemical change) in rocks. He employs light and electron microscopy (SEM and TEM) to assess the preservation of microstructures in naturally and experimentally deformed rocks, and examines how post-deformation annealing, grain growth and diffusion may modify dynamic microstructures. Together with members of the Rock Deformation group at the University of Basel in Switzerland, Holger works to develop reliable tools for the recognition of deformation mechanisms, processes, and conditions in natural systems. (University of Basel)

Basil Tikoff is a quantitative field geologist who combines field geology, geophysical methods, physical (analog) models, and numerical models to understand three-dimensional deformation. Ongoing projects are on a range of scales and crustal levels in order to consider deformation of the entire lithosphere. Tools that he uses routinely are strain modeling, physical modeling, EBSD and universal stage analysis for LPO, geomagnetism (paleomagnetism and AMS) and gravity inversion. (University of Wisconsin)

Christine Siddoway is a structural geologist enamored with migmatites. Her current investigations of high temperature rocks focus on the exhumation history of a Cretaceous gneiss dome in West Antarctica and on the kinematic history of Proterozoic gneiss terranes of Colorado, for understanding of the behavior and role of partial melts in the middle crust during tectonism. A sideline is brittle kinematic analysis of mesoscopic faults associated with Laramide foreland structures in Colorado. Christine teaches structural geology and metamorphic petrology at Colorado College under the one-course-at-a-time schedule (Block Plan) implemented at CC, making full use of the local field laboratory in the Rocky Mountains. (Colorado College)