Alan Levander Carey Croneis Professor of Geology and Geophysics Chairman, Department of Geology & Geophysics Research Interests: Lithospheric Seismology and Wave Propagation   More Information About Alan Levander  Tel (713) 527-6064 Fax (713) 285-5214 Email alan@rice.edu

RESEARCH:
My students and I study the processes of orogensis at plate margins and in mountain belts using seismic reflection and refraction data as the basis for structural studies. In the past 10 years, we have conducted reflection/refraction investigations in the San Andreas transform fault system in southeastern, central, and northern California (1986, 1992, 1993, 1994), in the Brooks Range, Arctic Alaska (1988, 1990), and through the southern Rocky Mountains /Colorado Plateau and Alberta plains region (Deep Probe, 1995). We also investigate the shallow crust using high resolution seismology for tectonic and environmental studies (New Mexico, 1996, CDROM Wyoming, 1998, Utah, 1998).

I currently have a reflection seismology project to investigate the Proterozoic construction of southwestern North America by terrane accretion to the Archean craton, and subsequent controls of the Proterozoic sutures on modern tectonics. This project, known as CDROM (Continental Dynamics of the Rocky Mountains), is part of a 12 institution structural, geochemical, geochronologic, and active and passive seismic study funded by the NSF Continental Dynamics Program. CDROM is a follow on to the Lithoprobe/NSF Continental Dynamics Deep Probe continental scale refraction project along the western cordillera.

With two other researchers from the Center for Computational Geophysics (Colin Zelt in G&G and Bill Symes in CAAM) I have project to develop imaging methods for high resolution seismic data for environmental studies funded by DOE.

A large part of our research is devoted to developing innovative seismic data processing methods for deep data, including depth migration algorithms for vertical-incidence and wide-angle seismic data, and synthetic seismogram algorithms for 2 and 3-dimensionally heterogeneous media. To characterize the highly heterogeneous rocks found in the crystalline crust we have developed stochastic models of igneous and metamorphic rocks, providing a statistical description of rock fabrics and seismic velocities.

I'm currently engaged in work for IRIS, the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology, and for the USArray initiative:

USArray: An Earth Sciences initiative to investigate the North American continent

I will be participating in the Mathematical Geophysics Summer School at Stanford University from Juuly 31-August 18, 2000.