Research Interests

I'm currently working in two areas: STATEMENT OF RESEARCH INTERESTS.

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Current and Recent Projects

Lhasa Block Top to Bottom--Lithospheric Evolution of Asia's Leading Edge (active)

Together with a large group of colleagues at other institutions, we are using the Lhasa Block in southern Tibet as a natural laboratory to examine crustal evolution of a convergent margin across the transition from convergence to collision. We wish to examine how the early history of a convergent margin can impact later development of the collisional margin, integrating data from studies in geochemistry, geochronology, paleoelevation studies, seismology, tectonics, and thermo-mechanical modeling. This multidisciplinary five-year project, funded by the Continental Dynamics Program of the U.S. National Science Foundation, involves a number of investigators from institutions in the U.S., China, and Europe. The PIs include Zeitler and Anne Melzer at Lehigh, Don Depaolo (Project Coordinator) at Berkeley, An Yin and Mark Harrison at UCLA, David Rowley at Chicago, David Shuster at the Berkeley Geochronology Center and Berkeley, Frederic Herman at ETH in Zurich, and Mo Xuanxue, Zhidan Zhao, and Di-cheng Zhu at China University of Geosciences. Jen Schmidt here at Lehigh is working on this project as part of her Ph.D. dissertation.

Evolution of the Hangay Mountains in North-Central Mongolia (active)

This large project is a collaboration with Anne Meltzer, Bruce Idleman, and Dork Sahagian at Lehigh, Karl Wegmann at North Carolina State (Karl is lead PI for the whole project), Rick Carlson at DTM, Page Chamberlain at Stanford, and colleagues from the Mongolian Institute of Science and Technology and also the Center of Astronomy and Geophysics at the Mongolian Academy of Sciences. Lenny Ancuta and Kalin McDannell here at Lehigh are working on their Ph.D. degrees as part of this project, on basalt geochemistry and geochronology, and thermochronology. Our goal is to use seismology, geomorphology, geochronology and themochronology, paleo-elevation studies, and geochemistry and petrology to understand the timing and origin of the enigmatic Hangay Mountains, a broad domal region south of the Baikal rift that reaches elevations of 4000 meters. This project started in earnest in 2011, and was funded by the Continental Dynamics Program of the U.S. National Science Foundation.

Students & Student Opportunities

Current Students

• Lenny Ancuta (Ph.D candidate, dating, stratigraphy, and geochemistry of Hangay-Mountain basalts, Mongolia)
• Kalin McDannell (Ph.D candidate, thermochronology and landscape evolution of the Hangay Mountains, Mongolia; geochronology of clinker deposits)
• Jen Schmidt (Ph.D candidate, kinetic intercalibration of thermochronometers using the Little Devil's Postpile intrusion, Yosemite; unroofing history of SE Tibet)
• ...and Ryan McKeon - just moved to postdoc at Caltech. Who's going to date the shale now?

Student Opportunities

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Courses for Graduate Students

• EES 301. Seismology: Images and Dynamics of the Earth's Interior (3) (Meltzer)
• EES 316 (CEE 316). Hydrogeology (3) (Peters)
• EES 325. Remote Sensing of Terrestrial and Aquatic Environments (3) (Ramage)
• EES 334. Geosphere Structure and Evolution (3) (Bebout, Kodama)
• EES 405. Paleo- and Environmental Magnetism (3) (Kodama)
• EES 407. Seismology (3) (Meltzer)
• EES 412. Advanced Fluvial and Tectonic Geomorphology (3) (Pazzaglia)
• EES 426. Tectonic Processes (3) (Meltzer, Zeitler)
• EES 427. Orogenic Belts (3) (Anastasio)
• EES 428. Stress and Strain in Rocks (3) (Anastasio)
• EES 429. Methods and Applications of Geochronology (3) (Zeitler)
• EES 438. Petrogenetic Processes (3) (Bebout)
• EES 457. Advanced Remote Sensing of the Environment (3) (Ramage)
• EES 471. Stable Isotope Chemistry - Theory, Techniques, and Applications in the Earth and Environmental Sciences (3) (Bebout)
• EES 473. Aqueous Geochemistry (3) (Peters)

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Research Facilities

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Recent and Representative Publications

Booth, A.L., Chamberlain, C.P., Kidd, W.S.F., Zeitler, P.K., 2009. Constraints on the metamorphic evolution of the eastern Himalayan syntaxis from geochronologic and petrologic studies of Namche Barwa. Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 121, p. 385-407, doi: 10.1130/B26041.1.  (pdf)

Cerveny, P.F., Naeser, N.D., Zeitler, P.K., Naeser, C.W. and Johnson, N.M., 1988. History of uplift and relief of the Himalaya over the past 18 Ma - Evidence from fission-track ages of detrital zircons from sandstones of the Siwalik Group, in K. Kleinspehn and C. Paola, eds., New Perspectives in Basin Analysis, Univ. Minnesota Press, p. 43-61.  (pdf (10MB!))