Events

UTIG Discussion Hour: Kelly Brooks, CEPRA, Texas GLO

Speaker: Kelly Brooks, Project Manager, Coastal Erosion Planning & Response Act, Texas GLO

Title: Career Options in Government for Geoscientists

EPS Faculty Meeting

Lithosphere and Dynamic Earth seminar: Student Talks

Ethan Conrad, Catherine Ross, Emily Hinshaw

DeFord Lecture | Jacky Austermann

How high was last interglacial sea level?

Dr. Jacky Austermann, Columbia University

Abstract: The Last interglacial (~125ka) was 0.5-1.5 ºC warmer than today, making it an interesting natural experiment for how ice sheets respond to modest warming. In this talk I will first describe past estimates for Last interglacial sea level and corresponding polar ice retreat before presenting our new assessment from sea level data in the Bahamas. I will show our field evidence and describe how we can leverage the spatial extent of the data to constrain the contribution of glacial isostatic adjustment to past sea level. Based on these data, we find that Last Interglacial sea level very unlikely exceeded ~5m, which is below the current estimate from the IPCC. Next, I will present new Last Interglacial sea level data from northwest Europe, and argue that these observations predominantly constrain the contribution from the Antarctic ice sheet during the Last interglacial. Combining both results (from the Bahamas and northwest Europe) allows us to not only produce a new time-varying estimate of Last Interglacial sea level, but also partition this melt between Greenland and the Antarctic ice sheet. I will end by speculating what these new results mean for future sea level rise.

DeFord Lecture Series
Since the 1940’s, the DeFord (Technical Sessions) lecture series, initially the official venue for disseminating EPS graduate student research, is a forum for lectures by distinguished visitors and members of our community. This is made possible through a series of endowments.

BEG Seminar: Svetlana Ikonnikova - The Technical University of Munich

Bureau Seminar Series

UTIG Seminar Series: Kuheli Dutt, MIT

Speaker: Kuheli Dutt, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Host: Shuoshuo Han

Title: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the Geosciences: Where Are We Now?

Abstract: The geosciences are among the least diverse STEM fields, with a need for concerted action on various fronts. With the events of 2020, including the pandemic which disproportionately impacted women and communities of color, and the racial justice movement, as we return to work we need to take stock of where we are now in the DEI space and what we can do to promote inclusion. This session will provide insights and guidelines on advancing DEI in the geosciences, with a focus on the events of the past year and what they mean for DEI efforts.

Water, Climate and Environment Seminar | Xue Feng - U. of Minnesota

Ecosystem response to climate change

Habitability Seminar: John Lassiter, University of Texas at Austin

A seminar from the Center for Planetary Systems Habitability

Title: Three billion years of seawater evolution – How continental growth, weathering, climate swings, and the colonization of land have impacted seawater composition, and what this tells us about Earth’s homeostasis
 
Speaker: John Lassiter, Professor, Department of Geological Sciences, Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin

https://habitability.utexas.edu/events/

Lithosphere and Dynamic Earth seminar: Marissa Trembley (Purdue)

JSG EDGE: Enhancing Diversity in Geoscience Graduate Education

The virtual JSG EDGE is designed to encourage US citizens and permanent residents traditionally underrepresented in the geosciences to apply to train with JSG faculty and research scientists whose research agendas are of interest to the students.

At the JSG EDGE 2021, students meet virtually with Jackson School of Geosciences faculty and research scientists interested in training diverse graduate students to conduct interdisciplinary geoscience research for the lasting benefit of humankind. Students will also meet with current JSG graduate students via a panel and social mixers, hear about some of the research at JSG via lightning talks by faculty and research scientists, and take virtual tours of JSG labs.

DeFord Lecture | Marissa Tremblay

From the Alps to Outer Space: Reconstructing Surface Temperatures Using Cosmogenic Noble Gases

Dr. Marissa Tremblay, Purdue University

Abstract:

DeFord Lecture Series
Since the 1940’s, the DeFord (Technical Sessions) lecture series, initially the official venue for disseminating EPS graduate student research, is a forum for lectures by distinguished visitors and members of our community. This is made possible through a series of endowments.

BEG Seminar: Guo-Chin (Dino) Huang, Ph.D. - Bureau of Economic Geology

Dino Huang, Ph.D.

Seismogenic Features of the Snyder Seismic Zone, Northwestern Texas

Earthquake activities in the greater Permian Basin have significantly increased since 2008. Over time, seismic events were unevenly distributed throughout the basin and often occurred in a number of seismic zones which may have disclosed concealed seismogenic structures. Among them, the Snyder area of northwest Texas has a significant seismicity rate, second only to that of the Delaware Basin, a subunit of the greater Permian Basin. A recent study has investigated the concealed seismogenic structures in the Snyder area using three main approaches: (1) relocated and delineated seismicity, (2) performed waveform moment tensor inversion to determine earthquakes’ source mechanisms, as well as (3) conducted stress inversion to assess the stress state. In this presentation I will present the study results. Results show that seismicity are concentrated in the basement-top. The collective pattern of source mechanisms presents a fault system comprising a mix of strike-slip and normal faults. The overall geometry of seismicity distribution illustrates an apparent northeast-to-southwest lineation, aligning with the direction of maximum horizontal stress. This study has further identified several seismogenic cycles in 2017-2021. Results also demonstrate a temporal variation of b-value, which should be associated with the perturbation of effective normal-stress along the preexisting fault planes during the earthquake cycles. It also presents a series of foreshock-mainshock-aftershock sequences that seemingly resemble tectonic-like seismicity. All of which suggest that seismicity in the Snyder area involves re-activation of basement-rooted faults.

Send anonymous feedback on Bureau presentations to:

speakerfeedback@beg.utexas.edu

Join Zoom Meeting

https://utexas.zoom.us/j/92613531749?pwd=WVMvTk9KS0FEK2NrYXZ0Y1dVVkgzZz09

Meeting ID: 926 1353 1749

Passcode: 604705

One tap mobile

+13462487799,, 92613531749# US (Houston)

+16699006833,, 92613531749# US (San Jose)

Dial by your location +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)

Find your local number: https://utexas.zoom.us/u/abM6yb8rqx

UTIG Seminar Series: Janet Vertesi, Princeton University

To watch the recorded talk online please request a link from social@ig.utexas.edu

Water, Climate and Environment Seminar | Eric C. Hiatt - JSG

Interplay of the putative ocean/highland aquifer on Mars

JSG EDGE: Enhancing Diversity in Geoscience Graduate Education

The virtual JSG EDGE is designed to encourage US citizens and permanent residents traditionally underrepresented in the geosciences to apply to train with JSG faculty and research scientists whose research agendas are of interest to the students.

At the JSG EDGE 2021, students meet virtually with Jackson School of Geosciences faculty and research scientists interested in training diverse graduate students to conduct interdisciplinary geoscience research for the lasting benefit of humankind. Students will also meet with current JSG graduate students via a panel and social mixers, hear about some of the research at JSG via lightning talks by faculty and research scientists, and take virtual tours of JSG labs.

Hot Science At Home "Space Environmentalism"

With more than 500,000 objects floating in space and only about 2,000 functioning, space junk is growing exponentially. When these objects stop working, they drift aimlessly into the cosmos. These rogue bits of metal and space debris pose a danger to the technologies we rely on and to the future of space exploration. Dr. Moriba Jah examines what we can do to make space safe, secure and sustainable in the long term.

After joining the U.S. Air Force, Dr. Jah discovered aviation and eventually pursued aerospace engineering. He came to the University of Texas by way of the Air Force Research Laboratory and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory prior to that, where he was a Spacecraft Navigator on Mars missions. He is the director for Computational Astronautical Sciences and Technologies at UT. His research focuses on identifying and tracking space objects.

The event will be streamed live through our Facebook and YouTube channels and will include a Q&A session. Additional information is available at www.hotsciencecooltalks.org.

UTIG Discussion Hour: Peter Hennings, UT Bureau of Economic Geology

Speaker: Peter Hennings, Research Scientist, UT Bureau of Economic Geology

Title: What we’ve learned about the Geology of Induced Seismicity in Texas through the eyes of the TexNet-CISR Collaboration

Lithosphere and Dynamic Earth seminar: Eirini Poulaki

Graduate Studies Committee (GSC) Meeting

This is an internal Jackson School of Geosciences meeting for faculty and research scientists who are part of the Graduate Studies Committee.

DeFord Lecture | Kevin Mahan

Rheological heterogeneity in deep continental crust: Examples from the Rocky Mountains, the Canadian Shield, and the European Alps

Dr. Kevin Mahan, University of Colorado

Abstract: This presentation will highlight three examples of rheological heterogeneity recorded in exhumed exposures of deep continental crust. The first two are examples where lithological contrasts influenced the rheological behavior of kilometer-scale ductile shear zones, and the third is an example of mechanical heterogeneity in the form of initial fractures that evolved to ductile shear zones. While the examples vary widely in scale and tectonic setting, a common observation is that heterogeneity (lithological and mechanical) and fluid availability (and fluid-rock interaction) played critical roles in promoting active deformation mechanisms and transient ductile and brittle behavior.

The Paleoproterozoic Hell Roaring Creek shear zone is a 3 km wide, steeply dipping amphibolite-facies structure exposed in the northern Madison Range of southwest Montana (~25 km paleodepths). Mineral assemblages and local evidence for metasomatism suggest deformation developed under relatively wet conditions. Stretching lineations within the shear zone have a bimodal geometry, with nearly down-dip orientations in most lithologies but shallowly plunging orientations in the most quartz-rich lithologies. Dextral shear sense indicators are consistently observed on subhorizontal surfaces. Observations within and adjacent to the shear zone suggest that the steep fabric elements are at least partly inherited from an earlier episode of deformation and were enhanced during subsequent shear zone activity. Thus, the shear zone exhibits strain partitioning during transpression due to rheological contrast among lithologies and heterogeneity from inherited structures.

PseudotachylyteThe Paleoproterozoic Cora Lake shear zone in the western Churchill Province of the Canadian Shield is a several km wide zone of granulite- to upper amphibolite-facies mylonite which hosts synkinematic pseudotachylyte (~30-25 km paleodepths). Limited evidence for hydrous fluids suggest relatively dry conditions. The shear zone is localized at a major lithological and terrane boundary, with the pseudotachylyte network centered on the more intensely deformed, finer-grained ultramylonitic core. We conclude that episodic brittle failure during lower-crustal ductile shear was most likely due to local stress amplification from a relatively common type of km-scale lithological heterogeneity.

Fracture systems in otherwise homogeneous granites in the Alps and in meta-gabbronorite dikes in Montana systematically evolved into outcrop-scale ductile shear zones under amphibolite- to eclogite-facies conditions, with strong influences from locally fluxing aqueous fluids. The interpreted shear zone evolution involved (1) initial strain localization by nucleation on pre-existing, or in some cases nearly co-eval, fractures that focused fluid infiltration, (2) grain-size reduction by microfracturing, dislocation creep, and synkinematic metamorphic reactions driven by chemical potential gradients, and (3) a switch to grain-size sensitive granular flow accommodated by fluid-assisted diffusion in ultramylonite.

DeFord Lecture Series
Since the 1940’s, the DeFord (Technical Sessions) lecture series, initially the official venue for disseminating EPS graduate student research, is a forum for lectures by distinguished visitors and members of our community. This is made possible through a series of endowments.

BEG Seminar: Katriona Edlmann, Ph.D. - University of Edinburgh

Bureau Seminar Series

Large scale geological storage of hydrogen to support Net Zero

To meet the global commitments for net zero carbon emissions our energy mix must transition from fossil fuels. Hydrogen is gaining increasing recognition as a low carbon energy option to support this energy transition.  Hydrogen is considered a low-carbon substitute for fossil fuels to decarbonise domestic and industrial heat, power generation and heavy-duty transport. It can also promote increased renewable energy uptake by acting as an energy store to balance supply and demand.

For hydrogen to be deployed at the scales required for net zero, we will need access to large-scale geological storage. Our initial studies show that the required storage capacity exists in depleted gas fields within the UK North Sea. This talk will present an overview of the most recent findings from the EPSRC funded HyStorPor project, working to establish the feasibility of storing hydrogen in underground porous reservoirs. The talk will cover the results of our research into the key biological and chemical reactions between the reservoir rocks, formation fluids and injected hydrogen that could compromise the storage complex; the key flow processes that influence hydrogen migration and trapping during injection and withdrawal and our findings from reservoir simulations to estimate what volumes of hydrogen can be stored and recovered from storage sites, with a particular focus on the role of the cushion gas.

Join Zoom Meeting

https://utexas.zoom.us/s/98040075762

Meeting ID: 980 4007 5762

Passcode: 608701

One tap mobile

+13462487799,, 98040075762# US (Houston)

+16699006833,, 98040075762# US (San Jose)

Doctoral Defense: Wei Wei

The final doctoral examination for WEI WEI has been scheduled for NOVEMBER 19, 2021; 9:00AM; VIRTUAL (see Zoom link below)

The PhD project “Bathymetric And Subglacial Hydrological Context For The Basal Melting Of Antarctic Ice Shelves” was supervised by Dr. Don Blankenship and Dr. Patrick Heimbach.

Committee members include:

Zong-Liang Yang

Duncan A Young

Omar Ghattas

Cyril Grima

The defense is open to all members of the University community and the public.

ZOOM link: https://utexas.zoom.us/j/3471995182

UTIG Seminar Series: Elisa Mantelli, IMAS, University of Tasmania

Water, Climate and Environment Seminar | Tyson McKinney - JSG

The effects of different hydrograph shapes on flooding-induced respiration in riparian-hyporheic zones

Habitability Seminar: Rob Wittenmyer, MINERVA-Australis Observatory

A seminar from the Center for Planetary Systems Habitability
 
Title: Mass measurements and rescue of planets using a fully dedicated Australian observatory
 
Speaker: Rob Wittenmyer, Professor, (MINiature Exoplanet Radial Velocity Array) MINERVA-Australis Observatory, University of Southern Queensland, Australia
 
Abstract:
NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has identified more than 4500 planet candidates in its first three years of operation. Spectroscopic follow-up of these planets remains a bottleneck, with more than 95% of candidates awaiting confirmation. MINERVA-Australis is the only southern hemisphere observatory wholly dedicated to the detailed follow-up of TESS planets.  Being fully robotic, we have been unaffected by Covid-19 closures.  We have contributed to the confirmation of 30 planets to date — nearly 20% of all TESS confirmed planets. I present mass measurements and system parameters for several new planets using MINERVA-Australis radial velocities.  I also describe our new photometric capabilities, aiming to validate small TESS planets and to rescue planets from ephemeris erosion.  MINERVA-Australis is accessible via NSF NOIRLab proposals, and the US community is highly encouraged to take advantage of its spectroscopic and photometric resources.

https://habitability.utexas.edu/events/

UTIG Discussion Hour: Sophie Goliber (PhD Talk)

Speaker: Sophie Goliber, PdD Candidate, UTIG

Title: TermPicks: A century of Greenland glacier terminus data for use in machine learning applications

UTIG Discussion Hour: Catherine Ross, UTIG (PhD Talk)

Speaker: Catherine Ross, PhD Candidate, UTIG

Title: Impact Crater chronology: thefull history from pre-impact tectonics to the post-impact hydrothermal systems