Areas of Research


Subduction zone magmas create Earth’s felsic continental crust, and bring societally important metals to shallow levels of the crust where they can be accessed. As these magmas transit and interact with existing crust, their geochemistry becomes rather complicated. This can make it challenging to constrain intrinsic parameters (e.g., water and other volatile concentrations, oxygen fugacity) and processes (e.g., crystallization differentiation, recycling of existing crust, and magma mixing).

To address these challenges, my research is grounded in field and petrographic observations of the exhumed intrusive record of arc magmas and their ore deposits, integrated with geochemistry, geochronology, and petrologic modeling.

I also have experience working on active volcanoes and volcanic hazards from my previous role at the USGS Volcano Science Center—you can see some of that work on the Publications page.

Roles of assimilation and redox in Acadian sulfide deposits


The Moxie mafic intrusion in northern Maine, USA hosts critical metal sulfide. This case-study focuses on sulfur exchange and redox reactions between crustal metasedimentary rocks and mafic magmas.


Crustal recycling versus growth: “contamination” of basalt in volcanic arcs


Upper-plate lithosphere which varies geographically by tectonically assembled belts controls the isotopic heterogeneity and emplacement style of mafic arc magmas over ~100 million years of arc activity.


Emigrant Gap: A case study of low-water shallow primitive arc magma differentiation


Using field geology and igneous petrology tools (whole-rock and mineral compositions, and thermodynamic modeling), we decipher the processes that primitive arc magmas experienced in the upper crust.


Geoethics


Many disciplines require ethics courses—bioethics in medicine, legal ethics in law… but, what about ethics for geology?


Skarn garnet records of a Cretaceous hydrothermal system


This is a comprehensive study of fluid flow into a cooling pluton along its metasomatic, hydrothermal contact with carbonate wallrock.