John Garver, professor of geology, is coauthor (with M. Bernet,
M.T. Brandon and B. Molitor) of a paper, “Downstream changes of Alpine zircon
fission-track ages in the Rhône and Rhine rivers,” in Journal of Sedimentary Research (v. 74, n. 1, 2003, p. 82-94.) With
former Union student Brandi Molitor of Averill
Park, the paper details a new
methodology of understanding how mountains grow and erode with time. The
team took small zircon crystals, the size of sand grains, and was able to date
them individually by the fission track method. Dates correspond
to cooling ages, and the cooling ages are a function of how fast the
mountains rise and erode. This paper included Molitor's thesis
results and was part of a thesis by Bernet at Yale
University. Fission-track (FT) dating is a powerful method of
radiometric dating that has made a significant impact on scientists' understanding of the
thermal history of the upper crust.
Garver also is part of an
NSF-funded project – “Testing the stress/heat-flow paradox of the San
Andreas Fault with fission-track and U+Th/He data from zircon from
the SAFOD drill hole.” SAFOD is a new initiative aimed at understanding the
Earth's crust along the San Andreas Fault. Part
of the new NSF-Funded “Earthscope Initiative,” this drill hole will
be a “borehole observatory” in which scientists can directly measure
the physical conditions of plate boundary earthquakes. Garver will work with David
Kirschner at St. Louis University
to date the thermal effects of the fault zone, which will help constrain models
of how hot faults become and the role of water in fault zone movement.
Garver and A.V. Soloviev of the Institute of the Lithosphere, Moscow (Russia)
have received a grant from the U.S. Civilian Research and Development
Foundation for the Independent States of the Former Soviet Union (CRDF) to
develop a fission track dating lab at the Institute of the Lithosphere of
Marginal Seas (ILMS) in Moscow, and then to embark on several projects with
scientific collaborators, including continuing their ongoing work on Russia's
Kamchatka Peninsula.