Diane Seward

Last updated

Diane Seward
Education Aberystwyth University
McMaster University
Alma mater Victoria University of Wellington
Scientific career
Thesis

Diane Seward is a low temperature thermochronologist. She is currently a Teaching Fellow at Victoria University of Wellington and affiliated with GNS Science. Seward's work has predominantly focused on thermochronology applied to basin analysis and tectonic evolution. Her research has also been instrumental in developing dating of volcanic deposit through fission track analysis.

Contents

Early life and education

Seward is originally from the United Kingdom. She completed her undergraduate degree in geology (BSc Hons) in 1963 [1] at University College Aberystwyth in Wales. Seward then completed an MSc in geology (1965) at McMaster University in Canada, [1] and, in 1974, in New Zealand, earned a PhD from the Victoria University of Wellington titled Some Aspects of Sedimentology of the Wanganui Basin, North Island, New Zealand. [1] [2] She was one of the first researchers to study the sedimentology of the Wanganui basin including early tephrochronology and developing some of the earliest fission track dating in New Zealand, [1] [3] [4] and this work continues. [5]

Career and impact

As a postdoctoral researcher Seward was employed by the New Zealand Institute of Nuclear Sciences, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR), where she expanded her work on fission track dating to cover uplift of older rocks.

Seward's international contribution as a researcher includes roles as a visiting scientist in the Max Planck Institut für Kernforschung, Heidelberg from 1976 to 1978; Senior Scientist at the Institute of Nuclear Sciences, DSIR, New Zealand 1979–1990 (with further work on fission track dating) [6] Senior Scientist at ETH, Zurich between 1990 and 2008; Visiting Scientist in the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai 1999; Invited Visiting Professor to Tongji University, Shanghai 2008; Blaustein Visiting Professor to Stanford University, California 2009 before returning to New Zealand in 2010 as Professor at Victoria University of Wellington's School of Geography Environment and Earth Science.

Seward is the author of a number of book chapters [7] [8] specifically focusing on fission track analysis including a recent chapter "Tracks in time" 2008. In:- A continent on the move Ed.: Graham, I. New Zealand Government publication. [9] [10]

Seward has a publication record of over 5000 citations [11] with highly cited publications on the Mesozoic and Cenozoic tectonics of the Tibetan plateau, [12] the Neogene kinematics of the central and Western Alps, [13] and fission-track dating of glass shards in New Zealand. [14]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laramide orogeny</span> Period of mountain building in North America

The Laramide orogeny was a time period of mountain building in western North America, which started in the Late Cretaceous, 80 to 70 million years ago, and ended 55 to 35 million years ago. The exact duration and ages of beginning and end of the orogeny are in dispute. The Laramide orogeny occurred in a series of pulses, with quiescent phases intervening. The major feature that was created by this orogeny was deep-seated, thick-skinned deformation, with evidence of this orogeny found from Canada to northern Mexico, with the easternmost extent of the mountain-building represented by the Black Hills of South Dakota. The phenomenon is named for the Laramie Mountains of eastern Wyoming. The Laramide orogeny is sometimes confused with the Sevier orogeny, which partially overlapped in time and space.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Basin and range topography</span> Alternating landscape of parallel mountain ranges and valleys

Basin and range topography is characterized by alternating parallel mountain ranges and valleys. It is a result of crustal extension due to mantle upwelling, gravitational collapse, crustal thickening, or relaxation of confining stresses. The extension results in the thinning and deformation of the upper crust, causing it to fracture and create a series of long parallel normal faults. This results in block faulting, where the blocks of rock between the normal faults either subside, uplift, or tilt. The movement of these blocks results in the alternating valleys and mountains. As the crust thins, it also allows heat from the mantle to more easily melt rock and form magma, resulting in increased volcanic activity.

The Walker Lane is a geologic trough roughly aligned with the California/Nevada border southward to where Death Valley intersects the Garlock Fault, a major left lateral, or sinistral, strike-slip fault. The north-northwest end of the Walker Lane is between Pyramid Lake in Nevada and California's Lassen Peak where the Honey Lake Fault Zone, the Warm Springs Valley Fault, and the Pyramid Lake Fault Zone meet the transverse tectonic zone forming the southern boundary of the Modoc Plateau and Columbia Plateau provinces. The Walker Lane takes up 15 to 25 percent of the boundary motion between the Pacific plate and the North American plate, the other 75 percent being taken up by the San Andreas Fault system to the west. The Walker Lane may represent an incipient major transform fault zone which could replace the San Andreas as the plate boundary in the future.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aragonite sea</span> Chemical conditions of the sea favouring aragonite deposition

An aragonite sea contains aragonite and high-magnesium calcite as the primary inorganic calcium carbonate precipitates. The reason lies in the highly hydrated Mg2+ divalent ion, the second most abundant cation in seawater after Na+, known to be a strong inhibitor of CaCO3 crystallization at the nucleation stage. The chemical conditions of the seawater must be notably high in magnesium content relative to calcium (high Mg/Ca ratio) for an aragonite sea to form. This is in contrast to a calcite sea in which seawater low in magnesium content relative to calcium (low Mg/Ca ratio) favors the formation of low-magnesium calcite as the primary inorganic marine calcium carbonate precipitate.

The Wellington Region of New Zealand has a foundation of Torlesse Greywacke rocks, that make up the Tararua and Rimutaka Ranges, that go from Wellington in the south to the Manawatū Gorge, where they are renamed as the Ruahine Ranges, and continue further north-northeast, towards East Cape. To the west of the Tararua Ranges are the Manawatū coastal plains. To the east of the Ruahine Ranges is the Wairarapa-Masterton Basin, then the Eastern Uplands that border the eastern coast of the North Island from Cape Palliser to Napier.

Tectonic Burial is the deformation of rocks caused by extreme pressure over millions of years. It often causes temperature evolutions and deep burials. Tectonic burial is usually the result of continental collisions or subduction in a region. An increase in burial depth leads to a weakened basin and basement but creates better preservation structure within the basement.

Sharon Mosher is an American geologist. She did her undergraduate work at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. After earning an MSc from Brown University, she returned to the University of Illinois to get her PhD in Geology in 1978. Since 2001 she has held the William Stamps Farish Chair at University of Texas, and, since 2009 she has served as the dean of the Jackson School of Geosciences at Texas. In 2013 she became the president of the American Geosciences Institute.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Provenance (geology)</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Taranaki Basin</span> Onshore-offshore Cretaceous rift basin on the West Coast of New Zealand

The Taranaki Basin is an onshore-offshore Cretaceous rift basin on the West Coast of New Zealand. Development of rifting was the result of extensional stresses during the breakup of Gondwanaland. The basin later underwent fore-arc and intra-arc basin development, due to the subduction of the Pacific Plate under the Australian Plate at the Hikurangi Subduction System. The basin covers approximately 100,000 km2 of which the majority is offshore. The basin contains mostly marine sediment, with significant terrestrial sediment from the Late Cretaceous to the Eocene. The majority of New Zealand's oil and gas production occurs within the basin, with over 600 wells and approximately 20 oil and gas fields being drilled.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Balfour Formation</span> Geological formation in the Beaufort Group of South Africa

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Mark Rupert Sutherland is a New Zealand geologist and academic specialising in tectonics and geophysics at the Victoria University of Wellington and a principal scientist at GNS Science. Sutherland has been described as "one of New Zealand’s leading earth science researchers" by the Royal Society of New Zealand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paleogeography of the India–Asia collision system</span>

The paleogeography of the India–Asia collision system is the reconstructed geological and geomorphological evolution within the collision zone of the Himalayan orogenic belt. The continental collision between the Indian Plate and Eurasian Plate is one of the world's most renowned and most studied convergent systems. However, many mechanisms remain controversial. Some of the highly debated issues include the onset timing of continental collision, the time at which the Tibetan plateau reached its present elevation and how tectonic processes interacted with other geological mechanisms. These mechanisms are crucial for the understanding of Mesozoic and Cenozoic tectonic evolution, paleoclimate and paleontology, such as the interaction between the Himalayas orogenic growth and the Asian monsoon system, as well as the dispersal and speciation of fauna. Various hypotheses have been put forward to explain how the paleogeography of the collision system could have developed. Important ideas include the synchronous collision hypothesis, the Lhasa-plano hypothesis and the southward draining of major river systems.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kevin C. A. Burke</span> British geologist (1929–2018)

Kevin C. A. Burke was a geologist known for his contributions in the theory of plate tectonics. In the course of his life, Burke held multiple professorships, most recent of which (1983-2018) was the position of professor of geology and tectonics at the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Science, University of Houston. His studies on plate tectonics, deep mantle processes, sedimentology, erosion, soil formation and other topics extended over several decades and influenced multiple generations of geologists and geophysicists around the world.

Cynthia Ebinger is an American geoscientist at Tulane University known for her research on continental rifts and the movement of continental plate boundaries.

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Mathilde Cannat is a French geologist known for her research on the formation of oceanic crust and the tectonic and magmatic changes of mid-ocean ridges.

Jacques Malavieille is a French geologist. He is known for research combining geological fieldwork with analog modeling, and with some computer modeling, for scientific understanding of lithospheric deformation.

Nick Mortimer is a New Zealand geologist, who has made a name for himself with his work on Zealandia.

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Diane Seward | School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences | Victoria University of Wellington". www.wgtn.ac.nz. 26 November 2018. Retrieved 9 March 2021.
  2. ↑ Seward, Diane (1974). Some Aspects of Sedimentology of the Wanganui Basin, North Island, New Zealand (Doctoral thesis). Open Access Repository Victoria University of Wellington, Victoria University of Wellington. doi: 10.26686/wgtn.16959085 .
  3. ↑ Diane Seward (1974), Some Aspects of Sedimentology of the Wanganui Basin, North Island, New Zealand, Open Access Repository Victoria University of Wellington, Wikidata   Q105831326
  4. ↑ "Women in New Zealand geoscience". ResearchGate. Retrieved 8 March 2021.
  5. ↑ G.R. Grant; J.P. Sefton; M.O. Patterson; et al. (December 2018). "Mid- to late Pliocene (3.3–2.6 Ma) global sea-level fluctuations recorded on a continental shelf transect, Whanganui Basin, New Zealand". Quaternary Science Reviews . 201: 241–260. Bibcode:2018QSRv..201..241G. doi:10.1016/J.QUASCIREV.2018.09.044. ISSN   0277-3791. Wikidata   Q63645985.
  6. ↑ Diane Seward (1979). "Comparison of zircon and glass fission-track ages from tephra horizons". Geology . 7 (10): 479. Bibcode:1979Geo.....7..479S. doi:10.1130/0091-7613(1979)7<479:COZAGF>2.0.CO;2. ISSN   0091-7613. Wikidata   Q59381940.
  7. ↑ Seward, Diane (1980). "Fission track ages of Santorini volcanic (Greece)". In Doumas, C. (ed.). Thera and the Aegean World. London. pp. 101–108.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  8. ↑ Seward, Diane (2002). "The syn- and post-orogenic low temperature events of the Southern and Middle Uralides: evidence from fission-track analysis". In D. Brown; C. Juhlin; V. Puchkov (eds.). Orogenic Processes in the Uralides. AGU Geophys. Mon. Series.
  9. ↑ "A continent on the move : New Zealand geoscience revealed". GNS Online Shop. Retrieved 8 March 2021.
  10. ↑ Graham, Ian (2008). A continent on the move: New Zealand geoscience in the 21st century. New Zealand: Geological Society of New Zealand.
  11. ↑ "diane seward". scholar.google.co.nz. Retrieved 8 March 2021.
  12. ↑ Jolivet, M; Brunel, M; Seward, D; Xu, Z; Yang, J; Roger, F; Tapponnier, P; Malavieille, J; Arnaud, N; Wu, C (15 December 2001). "Mesozoic and Cenozoic tectonics of the northern edge of the Tibetan plateau: fission-track constraints". Tectonophysics. 343 (1): 111–134. Bibcode:2001Tectp.343..111J. doi:10.1016/S0040-1951(01)00196-2. ISSN   0040-1951.
  13. ↑ Seward, Diane; Mancktelow, Neil S. (1 September 1994). "Neogene kinematics of the central and western Alps: Evidence from fission-track dating". Geology. 22 (9): 803–806. Bibcode:1994Geo....22..803S. doi:10.1130/0091-7613(1994)022<0803:NKOTCA>2.3.CO;2. ISSN   0091-7613.
  14. ↑ Seward, Diane (1 December 1974). "Age of New Zealand Pleistocene substages by fission-track dating of glass shards from tephra horizons". Earth and Planetary Science Letters. 24 (2): 242–248. Bibcode:1974E&PSL..24..242S. doi:10.1016/0012-821X(74)90102-2. ISSN   0012-821X.
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