Most of my research is based at poorly understood but critical tectonic plate boundaries, in particular subduction zones where oceanic plates are descending into the Earth’s deep interior. These are regions where tectonic activity, as observed in seismicity and volcanism, is localized, making them natural targets of high scientific and societal relevance. As a complement to the dynamic plate boundary research, the structure of stable continental interiors provides the best long-term record of plate tectonic processes.

Research questions that illustrate how those two objectives are related include: How has the outermost layer of the Earth evolved?  How do the stable continents affect the evolution of subduction zones?  How do processes and structures deep within the Earth control the geology we can observe at the surface?

Beginning in 2022, my ARC Future Fellowship will focus on how to advance cutting-edge Distrubuted Acoustic Sesning (DAS) technology and big data processing to develop unprecedented high-resolution images of the Earth’s subsurface, detect micro-seismicity, and thereby relate geological observations to Earth processes.