Example undergraduate projects 1) test fault geometry models for recent earthquakes, 2) test properties of rifts needed to explain previous earthquakes on local structures, 3) implemenet modern tools for cyberinfrastructure development to evaluate lithospheric-modulated convection material paramaters, and 4) development of transient detection algorithms.

Sea-level rise is a critical process creating hazards on Earth's population. Quantifying vertical land motions in regions experiencing effects from sea-level rise remains an important topic towards resilience to the effects of sea-level rise. We are embarking upon a kinematic and geodynamic study of the Chesapeake Bay of the North American Atlantic Coast in collaboration with the USGS and NOAA to (1) characterize vertical land motion with millimeter precision and (2) conduct numerical modeling to decipher the signals (fingerprints) that comprise the vertical land motions. This project is funded by the USGS (co-PI).  

In this project, we are using the Natron Rift of the East African Rift System as a natural laboratory to study early phase rifting. The active volcano Ol Doinyo Lengai is adjacent to the active border fault, the Natron Fault. We are using GNSS observations, InSAR, and numerial modeling to investigate the role of volcano-tectonic interactions in strain accommodation across the Natron Rift. This work is funded by a NSF CAREER Grant (PI) #1943681. We are expanding to leverage artificial intelligence applications to real-time data for volcanic hazards alerts. Jupyter notebooks: Mason et al. (2021), Dye et al. (2021)

In this project we are exploring the physical processes driving magma-poor continental rifting along part of the East African Rift System. Specifically, we are tackling the northern Western Branch in Uganda using a wide-range of techniques such as geochemistry, seismology, structural geology, geodynamics, and geodesy. This project is funded through the NSF Frontiers in Earth Science program (PI) #2021633. Through a DOE-NSF INTERN Geothermal supplement, we have also expanded this project to explore geothermal processes in southwestern Uganda.

We investigated asthenosphere-lithosphere interactions and upper mantle rheological properties in continental rift settings. In order to study the asthenosphere- lithosphere interactions, we used the NSF CIG community code ASPECT. We created 3D models of a regional mantle flow with distinct independent initial temperature conditions. This was the first 3D regional the lithospheric modulated convection model developed with ASPECT, which is driven temperature perturbations that arise from variations of lithospheric thickness. We also produced a convection model developed with ASPECT based on the conversion of a shear wave velocity model into temperature, which generated buoyancy due to temperature anomalies. In order to validate the mantle flow fields, we compare them with independent observations such as GPS velocity and seismic anisotropy. This work was funded by the NSF GeoPRISMS program (PI) #1551864. Publications: Rajaonarison et al. (2020), Rajaonarison et al. (2021).

We tested lithosphere-asthenosphere interactions, melt generation, and lithospheric dynamics with new EarthCube cyberinfrastructure called BALTO (Brokered Alignment of Long-Tail Observations with applications to the Rungwe Volcanic Province in East Africa. We accessed a suite seismic tomography and other models from IRIS to use as initial conditions in geodynamic models run with ASPECT. Model output was compared with independent observations to improve our understanding of lithospheric processes. This project was funded through the NSF EarthCube program #1740704. Publications: Njinju et al. (2019), Nijinju et al. (2021). Jupyter Notebooks: Peckham et al. (2020) Project website: https://sites.google.com/vt.edu/balto/home