About me
I am a structural geologist and geomechanicist who specializes in understanding how stresses affect the Earth’s lithosphere and in unraveling tectonic history and landscape evolution in the western U.S. My Ph.D. is in Geophysics from Stanford University, where I built a detailed new map of the principal stress orientations and relative magnitudes for North America. The new data enable researchers and practitioners to estimate the slip potential on mapped faults in major oil- and gas-producing basins. Because stress information is needed, among other things, to determine which natural fractures will experience slip and associated permeability enhancement during hydraulic stimulation, the dataset has broad utility for more efficiently developing unconventional oil and gas resources and geothermal energy.
In general, I am interested in continental tectonic history and the effect of the stress field on crustal deformation histories. To this end, I am also studying the Cenozoic tectonic history of the Basin and Range Province of the western USA, I am working to understand the Cenozoic evolution of the crust and Earth’s surface.
Photo by Theresa Schwartz.
My expertise includes geomechanics, regional and basin-scale stress mapping, induced seismicity research, microseismic data analysis, reflection seismic interpretation, field-based geologic mapping, cartography, U-Pb and Ar/Ar geochronology, the geologic history of the western and southwestern United States, kinematic and micro-kinematic analysis, transmitted-light petrography, and regional tectonics. I am knowledgeable about the geology of several actively producing geothermal and petroleum basins, including the Great Basin, Permian Basin, Fort Worth Basin (Barnett Shale), and Gulf Coast (Eagle Ford), as well as conventional reservoirs in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico.
I hold a Masters in Geological and Environmental Sciences, also from Stanford University. For my Masters research, I mapped stratigraphic relationships in a syn-extensional volcanic and sedimentary basin in northeast Nevada, USA, supported by geochemical and geochronologic analyses. I have also studied fault zone architecture during my year as a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Otago, New Zealand, where I worked with Virginia Toy to study the kinematic history and internal structure of a fault zone in the Australian Plate footwall of the Alpine Fault. Following my Masters, I worked for Statoil as an Exploration Geologist, where I conducted deepwater oil and gas exploration and prospect evaluation.