Ralph Archuleta

Basic research interests are observing, analyzing and predicting strong motion from earthquakes. Following up on these interests involves dissecting the problem into more manageable pieces: collecting data, modeling the earthquake process itself, and understanding wave propagation in heterogeneous geological structures.

Toshiro Tanimoto

I am interested in understanding Earth structure from the surface to the center. It requires understanding of how seismic waves propagate in the interior, the higher frequency end being heavily scattered, messy waves above 1 Hz and the lower frequency end being the ringings of the whole Earth around 1000 seconds.

Doug Burbank

Research Interests:
Tectonic geomorphology; active tectonics; structural and stratigraphic evolution of fold-and-thrust belts and foreland basins; evolution of collisional mountain ranges; kinematics of folding; basin analysis and modeling; analysis of digital topography; sedimentology; magnetostratigraphy; Quaternary paleoclimatology; glacial geology; geodynamics.

Frank Spera

Research applies the methods of fluid dynamics and transport phenomena to study generation, ascent and eruption of magma including interactions between fluids and rocks. Work includes laboratory studies of the viscometric properties of magma as well as studies of the geochemical evolution of magmatic centers. Using methods of Molecular Dynamics to understand the connection between the structure and properties of molten silicates and glasses of significance to petrologic processes.

Dylan Rood

My research focuses on the use of several cosmogenic isotopes, including 10Be, 26AI and 36CI as geochemical/geophysical tracers and dating tools. I utilize cosmogenic nuclides to investigate terrestrial climate records, earthquake fault slip rates, erosion rates and landscape evolution, seismic hazard and earthquake ground motions, Earth surface processes, atmospheric circulation, hydrology, burial dating and archeology, and calibration of cosmogenic nuclide production rates.

James Mattinson

Research efforts focus on two major areas of isotope geology: applying geochronology and radiogenic isotope tracer studies to problems in tectonics and igneous and metamorphic petrology; and advancing our understanding of the commonly complex behavior of the U-Pb system in zircon, one of the premier geochronology minerals.

Cathy Busby

I am a field geologist interested in tectonic reconstructions of dominantly volcanic and sedimentary terrains, using lab techniques such as geochronology, geochemistry, petrography, and paleomagnetics. I publish in a wide array of journal types, on a broad spectrum of topics, including subaerial to deepwater volcanology, sedimentology of active margins, economic geology, tectonophysics, structural geology, petroleum geology, geochronology and geochemistry. I put my students first on most papers, except for some of those that feature my most important ideas.

Bradley Hacker

My students, postdoctoral scholars, affiliated researchers and I combine field and theoretical studies to understand the physical and chemical processes in Earth's mid-lower crust and uppermost mantle.

Samuel Sweet

Distributional ecology and systematics of western North American and Australian amphibians and reptiles; ecology and systematics of monitor lizards; mechanics of intergrade zones and of speciational processes; crypsis; functional and evolutionary morphology; ethnozoology; conservation biology.

Leila M. V. Carvalho

Dr. Carvalho is a Professor in the Department of Geography and Researcher at the Earth Research Institute, UCSB. She has a B.S., M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Meteorology from the University of São Paulo, Brazil. Her research interests are in regional and large-scale climate variability and modeling, global climate change and scaling processes in geophysics. These topics include (but are not limited to) climate variation and change in monsoon regions, tropical-extratropical interactions, extreme precipitation and temperature, and regional modeling.

Earth Evolution