INFORMATION: Projects: Antarctic Ice Sheets Gas hydrate Capacitor Cretaceous and Paleogene Margins Plagioclase Dissolution Kinetics Wollastonite Dissolution Kinetics Barite Dissolution kinetics 3D Seismics at a Superfund Site Tomography at a Superfund Site Aleutian Seismic Hazards Fault Rocks in Death Valley Submarine Landslides - Hawaii

Global Change, Environmental, and Natural Hazards Research     The Department of Earth Science conducts a wide range of global change, environmental, and natural hazards related research in geochemistry, geophysics, and sedimentology, frequently in collaboration with other departments at Rice or other institutions. Global Change Research      Global change research includes NSF funded  investigations of the long term evolution of the West Antarctic ice sheet (John Anderson), Australian funded paleoclimate reconstructions and the role of the gas hydrate "capacitor" in storing and releasing carbon throughout  the Cenozoic in response to ocean temperature change (Jerry Dickens), and NSF and DOE funded research on the role of different mineral dissolution kinetics  in controlling the global CO2 cycle (Andreas Luttge). Environmental Cleanup       The Center for Computational Geophysics currently has a high resolution seismic project funded by DOE (Alan Levander and Colin Zelt in G&G, and William Symes in Computational and Applied Mathematics). The project is designed to develop specialized seismic imaging techniques for the shallow subsurface. Results of field studies associated with this project will aid ongoing remediation efforts to remove trichloro-ethene, a highly carcinogenic DNAPL, from a shallow aquifer at a Superfund site in Utah. Natural Hazards       Natural Hazards research includes an NSF funded structural geology and Global Positioning Satellite study of the Aleutian Island arc that will be useful for prediction of Aleutian earthquakes generally  and tsunami early warning for Hawaii and the Pacific Northwest of the United States (Hans Ave Lallemant), NSF funded research to model and observe the microstructures in active  fault zones (Juli Morgan), and NSF funded research to understand submarine landsliding in response to volcanism in the Hawaiian Islands (Juli Morgan).