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Project Descriptions
Spring 2025

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Showing 11 projects out of 11 found. On page 1 out of 1.
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Exploring the land-shore-ocean geochemistry of the California Coast.

Jim Bishop - Professor, Earth and Planetary Science

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: Off Campus

California Coast is dominated by streams, creeks, and ephemeral surface and groundwater flows that terminate in bar-built estuaries, many of which become seasonally isolated from direct flow to the ocean. Flowing water often seeps directly into the sand and may undergo significant reaction before entering the ocean; furthermore, there...

 Environmental Issues   Mathematical and Physical Sciences

Title Unavailable

Jim Bishop - Professor, Earth and Planetary Science

Status: Check back for status     

...

 Environmental Issues   Mathematical and Physical Sciences

Boundary layer circulations and turbulence in the North American monsoon

William Boos - Professor, Earth and Planetary Science

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs     Location: On Campus

The North American monsoon is a band of intense rainfall that stretches more than 1,000 km along Mexico's west coast and into the southwestern US, delivering crucial water supply to the semi-arid regions of Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. This monsoon is a continental-scale atmospheric circulation that driven...

 Engineering, Design & Technologies   Mathematical and Physical Sciences

Assessing extreme rainfall risk in equatorial Africa using satellite and in situ data

William Boos - Professor, Earth and Planetary Science

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs     

This project will use satellite data and a new network of hundreds of on-the-ground instrument stations to generate a risk dataset for farmers in equatorial Africa. Our research group studies the fluid dynamics of Earth's tropical atmosphere, focusing on the atmospheric waves and vortices that produce extreme rainfall...

 Engineering, Design & Technologies   Mathematical and Physical Sciences

Exploring how fault zones evolve during the earthquake cycle using satellite, field, and experimental observations

Roland Burgmann - Professor, Earth and Planetary Science

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

Earthquakes are influenced by the properties of faults. Our ability to characterize fault zones and determine how they impact earthquakes is limited. The goal of this project is to perform a multiscale analysis of the rock surrounding faults and explore how it may impact how faults slip and generate earthquakes...

 Mathematical and Physical Sciences

Volcanic eruptions underwater, on land, and on other planets

Michael Manga - Professor, Earth and Planetary Science

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

The overall goal of this project is to understand how and why volcanoes erupt. This includes what happens when volcanoes erupt under the sea, how changes in sea-level and lake-level affect eruptions, and how eruptions evolve on ocean worlds (e.g., Saturn's moon Enceladus). For the first...

 Mathematical and Physical Sciences

Exploring seismic attenuation changes at Long-Valley Caldera, California

Michael Manga - Professor, Earth and Planetary Science

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

Long-Valley caldera is an active magmatic system in California. The goal of this project is to explore seismic attenuation changes with ambient noise seismic interferometry to characterize subsurface hydrothermal fluid/magma movement and surface snow loading deformation process. This project will use over 20-years of seismic data to...

 Mathematical and Physical Sciences

Fracture history of rocks undergoing serpentinization

Michael Manga - Professor, Earth and Planetary Science

Status: Check back for status     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

Olivine-rich rocks, such as those from the mantle, react with water to form serpentine, other minerals, and release hydrogen. There is a large volume change from this reaction. Stresses from volume changes can create cracks which enable water to enter the rock. This project seeks to unravel the history...

 Mathematical and Physical Sciences

Probing the mechanisms of volcanic deformation and landslides in Mono Lake, CA

Michael Manga - Professor, Earth and Planetary Science

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

Mono Lake hosts some of the youngest volcanoes in California and one of them is actively sinking into the lake. The goal of this project is to quantify active volcanic deformation in Mono Lake and reveal the mechanisms that are driving it. This project will use InSAR, LiDAR, and geologic...

 Mathematical and Physical Sciences

Earthquake wave propagation through mysterious low-velocity structures at the core-mantle boundary

Barbara A. Romanowicz - Professor, Earth and Planetary Science

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Seismology has revealed mysterious patches with extreme seismic properties on the boundary from Earth’s liquid outer core to its rocky mantle. There still are many scientific unknowns about these structures which are called ultralow velocity zones. We do not understand what their origin is, what they are made of, or...

Design, build, and test instrumentation for extreme heat waves on a warming planet

David Romps - Professor, Earth and Planetary Science

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

This project will design, build, and test instrumentation to measure temperature, humidity, air currents, and infrared radiation in extreme heat and humdity. These instruments are needed for laboratory studies that will evaluate models of human physiology that, in turn, are used to project the future of heat stress on a...

 Engineering, Design & Technologies   Environmental Issues   Mathematical and Physical Sciences

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