Geology Open Night

Geology Open night lectures are usually on topics in the geosciences related to the current research of the faculty, staff and students at SUNY Stony Brook. These presentations are intended for:

• those interested in new developments in the sciences

• earth science high school students and teachers

• undergraduate and graduate students in geosciences

• professional geologists

Seeing What’s at Fault in Subduction Zones:
Examining Great Earthquake Megathrusts

Dr. Nathan Bangs
Institute for Geophysics
University of Texas

7:30  PM Friday September 28, 2012
ESS 001

What we thought lunar rocks were telling us and where we went wrong: Changing the lunar paradigm

Hanna Nekvasil
Stony Brook University

7:30  PM Friday October 26, 2012
ESS 001

The current paradigm for the geochemical evolution of the Moon is pinned to the data from samples returned from the manned lunar missions, from the study of lunar meteorites, and from the interpretation of lunar orbiter data. The differences in lunar materials relative to terrestrial rocks have provided a view of the Moon as a body fundamentally different from Earth, with volatile element/compound depletions that were both inherited from the impactor and induced by the high temperature Moon-forming event. However, recognition of an increasing number of geochemical characteristics in common between the two planetary neighbors is forcing a re-consideration of the current paradigm, reminding us that the data upon which the current lunar paradigm is built are from surface lithologies and that we must look at the potential for processes, rather than inherited characteristics, to have caused the unique surface lithologies of the Moon. I will discuss how lunar rocks have misled us into thinking that the Moon is a dry planetary body, and show how the rocks from the Highlands are leading to a breakdown of the time-honored model for generating the lunar crust.

Hanna Nekvasil runs the Experimental Petrology Laboratory at Stony Brook University where her research group simulates the pressure and temperatures at which magmas are stable in planetary interiors. Her current projects focus on understanding the role of magmas and the gases they exsolve on the geochemical evolution of the Martian and lunar crusts. Her work has led to the first determination of water in a lunar mineral, a find that radically changes our understanding of the Moon.

The Hayward Fault in the San Francisco Bay Area is a Tectonic Time Bomb

Christiane Stidham
Stony Brook University

The Hayward Fault runs through northern California’s San Francisco Bay Area, underlying many of its most populated regions. City planners in the area observe that they can locate the fault by connecting the locations of major hospitals in the East Bay, and no one living in the East Bay (a population of more than a million) lives more than a few miles from the Hayward Fault. As such, it has been one of the most studied faults in the world, but understanding of its past earthquakes has evolved very dramatically in recent years, giving us still only a toehold on estimates of likely future earthquakes. Given how many people will be affected by the next major earthquake on the Hayward Fault, it is important to improve our understanding of the fault’s behavior as best as possible, before the next Big One comes. Fifteen years ago, experts gave a 67% probability of a magnitude 7 or higher earthquake in the Bay Area in the next 30 years, so the clock is ticking - 

Dr. Stidham is a lecturer in the Geosciences Department at Stony Brook University. Her background is in both geology and geophysics, the product of a torturous graduate career. After a Berkeley dissertation on computer models of northern California earthquakes, she continued to a Harvard post-doc on computer models of southern California earthquakes (so as not to leave out the other California). Her teaching opportunities in recent years have shifted to topics of environmental geology and our ongoing energy revolution, but she checks in on California’s overdue earthquakes every now and then. 

7:30  PM Friday November 30, 2012
ESS 001