Marin Clark

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Marin Kristen Clark
Alma mater Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Scientific career
Institutions University of Michigan
Thesis Late Cenozoic uplift of southeastern Tibet  (2003)

Marin Kristen Clark is an American earth scientist who is Chair for Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Michigan. Her research considers lithospheric deformation. She was awarded the 2003 Geological Society of America Doris M. Curtis Award.

Contents

Early life and education

Clark was a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she studied the uplift of southeastern Tibet. [1] She worked alongside Leigh Royden on lower crustal flows and their role in building the eastern margins of Tibet. [2] [3]

Research and career

Clark studies the topography of Planet Earth and its relation to deformation of the lithosphere. She is particularly interested in the evolution of rivers as these provide information about the deformation-induced vertical movement of the Earth. To study these processes, Clark makes use of topographic measurements such as field geology and geographic information system modelling. [4] Clark has developed (U-Th)/He thermochronology to study minerals. [5] She was awarded the 2003 Geological Society of America Doris M. Curtis Award. [6]

After the April 2015 Nepal earthquake, Clark visited Nepal to monitor the co-seismic landslides. [7] Making use of pre- and post-earthquake satellite imagery, she identified that the landslides were more concentrated in the North of the transition between the Lesser and Greater Himalayas. [7] [8]

Selected publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sevier orogeny</span> Mountain-building episode in North America

The Sevier orogeny was a mountain-building event that affected western North America from northern Canada to the north to Mexico to the south.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mendocino Triple Junction</span> Point where the Gorda plate, the North American plate, and the Pacific plate meet

The Mendocino Triple Junction (MTJ) is the point where the Gorda plate, the North American plate, and the Pacific plate meet, in the Pacific Ocean near Cape Mendocino in northern California. This triple junction is the location of a change in the broad plate motions which dominate the west coast of North America, linking convergence of the northern Cascadia subduction zone and translation of the southern San Andreas Fault system. This region is can be characterized by transform fault movement, the San Andreas also by transform strike slip movement, and the Cascadia subduction zone by a convergent plate boundary subduction movement. The Gorda plate is subducting, towards N50ºE, under the North American plate at 2.5 – 3 cm/yr, and is simultaneously converging obliquely against the Pacific plate at a rate of 5 cm/yr in the direction N115ºE. The accommodation of this plate configuration results in a transform boundary along the Mendocino Fracture Zone, and a divergent boundary at the Gorda Ridge. This area is tectonically active historically and today. The Cascadia subduction zone is known to be capable of producing megathrust earthquakes on the order of MW 9.0.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dome (geology)</span> Geological deformation structure

A dome is a feature in structural geology consisting of symmetrical anticlines that intersect each other at their respective apices. Intact, domes are distinct, rounded, spherical-to-ellipsoidal-shaped protrusions on the Earth's surface. However, a transect parallel to Earth's surface of a dome features concentric rings of strata. Consequently, if the top of a dome has been eroded flat, the resulting structure in plan view appears as a bullseye, with the youngest rock layers at the outside, and each ring growing progressively older moving inwards. These strata would have been horizontal at the time of deposition, then later deformed by the uplift associated with dome formation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pseudotachylyte</span> Glassy, or very fine-grained, rock type

Pseudotachylyte is an extremely fine-grained to glassy, dark, cohesive rock occurring as veins that form through frictional melting and subsequent quenching during earthquakes, large-scale landslides, and impacts events. Chemical composition of pseudotachylyte generally reflects the local bulk chemistry, though may skew to slightly more mafic compositions due to the preferential incorporation of hydrous and ferro-magnesian minerals into the melt phase.

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.

The 1932 Changma earthquake occurred at 10:04:27 local time on 25 December. With an estimated magnitude of 7.6 on the surface wave magnitude scale, and a maximum felt intensity of X (Extreme) on the Mercalli intensity scale, the quake destroyed 1,167 houses and caused 275 to 70,000 deaths and 320 injuries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intraplate deformation</span>

Intraplate deformation is the folding, breaking, or flow of the Earth's crust within plates instead of at their margins. This process usually occurs in areas with especially weak crust and upper mantle, such as the Tibetan Plateau. Intraplate deformation brings another aspect to plate tectonic theory.

In geology, the term exhumation refers to the process by which a parcel of rock, approaches Earth's surface.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flat slab subduction</span> Subduction characterized by a low subduction angle

Flat slab subduction is characterized by a low subduction angle beyond the seismogenic layer and a resumption of normal subduction far from the trench. A slab refers to the subducting lower plate. Although, some would characterize flat slab subduction as any shallowly dipping lower plate as in western Mexico. Flat slab subduction is associated with the pinching out of the asthenosphere, an inland migration of arc magmatism, and an eventual cessation of arc magmatism. The coupling of the flat slab to the upper plate is thought to change the style of deformation occurring on the upper plate's surface and form basement-cored uplifts like the Rocky Mountains. The flat slab also may hydrate the lower continental lithosphere and be involved in the formation of economically important ore deposits. During the subduction, a flat slab itself may be deformed, or buckling, causing sedimentary hiatus in marine sediments on the slab. The failure of a flat slab is associated with ignimbritic volcanism and the reverse migration of arc volcanism. Multiple working hypotheses about the cause of flat slabs are subduction of thick, buoyant oceanic crust (15–20 km) and trench rollback accompanying a rapidly overriding upper plate and enhanced trench suction. The west coast of South America has two of the largest flat slab subduction zones. Flat slab subduction is occurring at 10% of subduction zones.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Orogenic collapse</span>

In geology, orogenic collapse is the thinning and lateral spread of thickened crust. It is a broad term referring to processes which distribute material from regions of high gravitational potential energy to regions of low gravitational potential energy. Orogenic collapse can begin at any point during an orogeny due to overthickening of the crust. Post-orogenic collapse and post-orogenic extension refer to processes which take place once tectonic forces have been released, and represent a key phase of the Wilson Cycle, between continental collision and rifting.

<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 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geology of Himachal Pradesh</span>

The geology of Himachal Pradesh is dominated by Precambrian rocks that were assembled and deformed during the India-Asia collision and the subsequent Himalayan orogeny. The Northern Indian State Himachal Pradesh is located in the Western Himalaya. It has a rugged terrain, with elevation ranging from 320m to 6975m. Rock materials in the region are largely from the Indian craton, and their ages range from the Paleoproterozoic to the present day. It is generally agreed that the Indian craton collided with Asia 50-60 million years ago (Ma). Rock sequences were thrust and folded immensely during the collision. The area has also been shaped by focused orographic precipitation, glaciation and rapid erosion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brevard Fault</span> Geological feature in the eastern United States

The Brevard Fault Zone is a 700-km long and several km-wide thrust fault that extends from the North Carolina-Virginia border, runs through the north metro Atlanta area, and ends near Montgomery, Alabama. It is an important Paleozoic era feature in the uplift of the Appalachian Mountains.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marie Violay</span> French expert in rock mechanics

Marie Violay is a French expert in rock mechanics. She is an Assistant Professor and the head of the Laboratory of Experimental Rock Mechanics at EPFL. She teaches rocks mechanics, geophysics for engineers and geology.

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.

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

Anne Meltzer is a seismologist known for her research on earthquakes and the formation of mountain ranges. Her research primarily focused on the evolution of the earth's lithosphere and the surface processes associated with faulting and deformation in the earth's crust. Through her own personal research and collaboration with other colleagues, she strived to make advancements in the efficiency and effectiveness of monitoring earthquakes. In addition, her work aimed to effectively reduce earthquake destruction in countries that experience frequent seismic phenomena.

Delores Marie Robinson is an American geophysicist who is a professor and department chair at the University of Alabama. Her research considers how orogenic systems evolve from porto-magmatic arcs, with a particular focus on Western Nepal, India, Bhutan and Southern Tibet.

The 1955 Zheduotang earthquake, also known as the Kangding earthquake occurred on April 14 at 09:29:02 local time near the city of Kangding in the Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan. The earthquake had a moment magnitude of 7.0 and a surface wave magnitude of 7.1 and struck at a depth of 10 km. Severe damage occurred in Kangding with the loss of 70 lives.

The 2003 Dayao earthquake occurred on July 21, at 23:16:33 CST. The epicenter of the moment magnitude 5.9 earthquake was in Dayao County in the mountainous area of central Yunnan, China. At least 19 people were killed, 644 were injured, and 8,406 families became homeless. The quake also caused $75 million USD in damages.

References