Cynthia Ebinger is an American geoscientist at Tulane University known for her research on continental rifts and the movement of continental plate boundaries.
Ebinger did postdoctoral training at the National Aeronautics and Space Agency's (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center and was a NATO postdoctoral fellow at Leeds University (1990–1991).[4] She was a professor at the University of London (2004–2006) and a lecturer at the University of Leeds (1991–1998).[4] In 2006,she moved to the University of Rochester,where she was a full professor.[1] In 2017,she moved to Tulane University,when she was named the first Marshall-Heape Chair in 2017.[5][6][7]
Ebinger was editor-in-chief of the journal Basin Research from 2015 to 2019.[8][9]
Research
Ebinger's research has shown that a bend in the Appalachian mountain ranged is caused by the presence of volcanic rock that shifted the mountain range during it formation millions of years ago.
While Ebinger was at NASA,she worked with anthropologists on images of the Great Rift Valley in Ethiopia to find eroded sediments indicative of fossil beds that were visible from space.[10] She has also worked on the magmatic margins of the Main Ethiopian rift,[11][12] modeled the plume of magma beneath the Ethiopean plateau,[13] and examined changes rock-magma interactions to determine how magmatic intrusion causes earthquakes.[14][15] Ebinger has conducted research at multiple field locations including Tanzania,[16][17] the Galapagos,[18][19] and in the continental United States where her research explains the bend in Appalachian Mountains.[20][21] She has also worked on carbonate-rich magmas on continental rifts[22] where she led an interdisciplinary team that examined how rifts shift carbon dioxide over geologic time.[23][24]
Ebinger shares her research expertise through appearances on National Public Radio. In 2009,Ebinger talked with National Public Radio about her work in the Ethiopian desert which she described as "creating new ocean floor".[25] In a 2014 appearance on Science Friday[26] Cynthia Ebinger and Elizabeth Cottrell spoke about volcanic eruptions,monitoring earthquakes from land-based measurements and from space,and the potential for predicting earthquakes to allow people to evacuate an area before an earthquake.
In 2013,Ebinger was named a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union,[27]
For fundamental work on the evolution of continental rifts toward seafloor spreading in East Africa and afar.
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The Iapetus Ocean was an ocean that existed in the late Neoproterozoic and early Paleozoic eras of the geologic timescale. The Iapetus Ocean was situated in the southern hemisphere, between the paleocontinents of Laurentia, Baltica and Avalonia. The ocean disappeared with the Acadian, Caledonian and Taconic orogenies, when these three continents joined to form one big landmass called Euramerica. The "southern" Iapetus Ocean has been proposed to have closed with the Famatinian and Taconic orogenies, meaning a collision between Western Gondwana and Laurentia.
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The East African Rift (EAR) or East African Rift System (EARS) is an active continental rift zone in East Africa. The EAR began developing around the onset of the Miocene, 22–25 million years ago. It was formerly considered to be part of a larger Great Rift Valley that extended north to Asia Minor.
Burrell Clark Burchfiel is an American structural geologist. Born in Stockton, California, he earned his Ph.D. in 1961 at Yale University. His first academic appointment was to the Geology department at Rice University. He is the Schlumberger Professor Emeritus of Geology at MIT. Research interests: Origin, development, and structural evolution of the continental crust. His current work involves study of the geological history and evolution of the Tibetan plateau.
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