CURRENT PROJECTS
Basal Age of the Great Valley forearc basin, California
In collaboration with Dr. Kathleen Surpless
The preservation of the Great Valley forearc has led to over 60 years of research devoted to understanding its evolution, as well as the deep-water sedimentologic processes related to the development of vast petroleum and natural gas reservoirs (e.g., Graham, 1987). Recent advances in geochronologic dating and applications to provenance studies have shed light on sediment dispersal and infilling patterns of the Great Valley forearc (DeGraaff-Surpless et al, 2002; Dumitru et al., 2013; Sharman et al., 2014). However, the application of such tools, has also called into question
Great Valley forearc, CA at the UC Davis McLaughlin Reserve
previously understood stratigraphic age constraints on the timing of initial basin sedimentation (Surpless et al. 2006). More than 10 years after this provocative study, the age and stratigraphic architecture of the basal Great Valley forearc remains unclear. The objectives of this study are to study the “birth” of a forearc basin through determining the depositional age and stratigraphic architecture of the basal Great Valley forearc basin.
Sedimentary facies and structural evolution of the Yarlung Suture Zone
In collaboration with Dr. Andrew Laskowski, Dr. Fulong Cai and Dr. Ding Lin
The Yarlung suture zone in southern Tibet contains several sedimentary successions that record sedimentation along the southern margin of Asia and leading edge of India prior to and following the onset of continent-continent collision. Our current work documents the discovery of two previously undocumented siliciclastic sedimentary successions, which we mapped and measured during our 2018 field season.
Dr. Andrew Laskowski mapping along the Yarlung Suture Zone, July 2018
Assessing controls on forearc basin subsidence
In collaboration with Dr. Stephan Graham
Low and high density turbidites, Great Valley Forearc, California
Forearc basins are important sediment archives for understanding continental dynamics because they preserve the tectonic, erosional and magmatic record of convergent margins. However, the tectonic forces that drive subsidence in forearc basins are poorly understood. This research seeks to determine the relative contribution of a variety of end-member subsidence mechanisms that act on forearc basins by using the California Great Valley forearc basin as the natural laboratory.
Wind River Range, Wyoming
Extracting t-T histories from highly variable zircon He datasets
In collaboration with Dr. William Guenthner
Recent advances in the understanding of He diffusivity in zircon provide new opportunities to extract thermal histories from regions with which experienced multiple and prolonged thermal events using the zircon He method. We are currently working on new thermochronologic constraints on the time-Temperature history of the northern Rocky Mountain region in Wyoming.
Check out our article in EPSL: Orme et al. 2016
