Skip to main content Skip to secondary navigation

About

Main content start
Boat on the water with equipment

The "Crustal Geophysics" research group studies the tectonics and geodynamics of the lithosphere, typically focussing on continental lithosphere that is currently or recently deforming and evolving. We use controlled-source reflection and refraction seismology on land and at sea, and a wide range of passive seismological analyses (shear-wave splitting, receiver-function analysis, surface-wave inversion) as necessary to address the chosen problems.

Recent and ongoing areas of investigation are the Himalaya-Tibet orogen, extensional and magmatic provinces in the western U.S.A., the East Africa Rift, and electromagnetic monitoring of the San Andreas Fault.

The Ph.D. students in the Crustal Group are currently working on seismic imaging (at different scales and with different techiques) of the Garwhal (NW Indian) Himalaya; the Karakoram intra-continental transform fault of western Tibet; the Kunlun (northern) margin of the high Tibetan Plateau; the Ruby Range metamorphic core complex of northeastern Nevada; and the leaky transform in the Salton Trough, southernmost California.

Professor Klemperer aims to recruit (typically) one new PhD student a year into the group, who will enjoy the mix of exotic fieldwork and intensive computer analysis, and who will combine geological insight with geophysical ability. We often have undergraduates working with us on research projects, including fieldwork, and occasionally post-docs.

Closely co-operating faculty are Jesse Lawrence, Norm Sleep, George Thompson, and consulting professors Jonathan Glen, Walter Mooney and David Scholl (all scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey).