Ben van der Pluijm

Bruce R Clark Collegiate Professor of Geology

Professor of the Environment

Director of the Global Change Program

currently on "loan" at the National Science Foundation
(Sustainability Portfolio "SEES", GEO/OAD)

UM logo ALERT: Our webmaster blocked php files because of a security breach, so some pages may not load correctly. Report fails to me.

Ben A van der Pluijm (say what?)
University of Michigan
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
(formerly, Department of Geological Sciences)
4534b C.C. Little Building
1100 North University Ave
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1005, U.S.A.

Email: vdpluijm@umich.edu

Office phone: 734.763.0373
Department phone: 734.764.1435
Fax: 734.763.4690

Links

University of Michigan
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
Program in the Environment

Tectonics and Structural Geology at U-M

EarthStructure - An Introduction to Structural geology and Tectonics (2nd edition)
Inquiries in Global Change

vanderBlog - Stuff that interests, occupies or entertains me

Picture Galleries, Tricks
Wolverine Access, CTools, LectureTools

Opportunities for graduate students, click here
Welcome new grad students, Austin Boles and Samantha Nemkin

News

A Focus on Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability.
Winter 2012, Eos Transactions

In a sustainable world, human needs would be met without chronic harm to the environment and without sacrificing the ability of future generations to meet their needs. Addressing the grand challenge of sustainability, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) has developed a coordinated research and education framework, called the Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability (SEES) portfolio (http://www .nsf .gov/sees). The growing family of SEES activities, currently consisting of 11 programs, represents a major interdisciplinary investment by NSF that reflects the following topical themes: environment, energy and materials, and resilience. The SEES research and education program portfolio emphasizes the use of systems-based approaches to address critical challenges at the nexus of environmental, energy and materials, and economic systems, including social and behavioral dynamics and questions of human resilience and vulnerability. The SEES portfolio seeks to increase capabilities for understanding, predicting, and responding to changes in the linked natural, social, and built environment. Within the above three themes of SEES, NSF supports a variety of new programs that are proceeding down three pathways to advance sustainability: (1) building the knowledge base, (2) growing the workforce of the future, and (3) forging critical partnerships. Through SEES’s goals and themes, proposed linkages and partnerships, and planned future trajectory, scientists can enact targeted plans for ensuring the sustainable future of human society. The research and education communities are strongly encouraged to create interdisciplinary proposals that address aspects of sustainability.

Sustainability science, engineering, and education require a multifaceted consideration of the natural environment, human populations, energy and materials use, built environment, and human behavior so that the challenges brought on by large-scale environmental change and modern resource demands—economic, technological, agricultural, and cultural—can be met. NSF’s SEES portfolio transcends basic sustainability research and education through new partnerships and by bridging the gap with societal application and adaptation. Confronting today’s grand challenge of sustainability, NSF’s growing family of SEES programs supports natural and social sciences, engineering, and education, involving every one of NSF’s directorates and offices. To ensure a healthful future, SEES relies on the energetic engagement of research and education communities from AGU and other scientific organizations to help create, nurture, grow, and disseminate the emerging knowledge base on sustainability.
Killeen, T., van der pluijm, B., Cavanaugh, M., Eos Transactions, 93, 1-3, 2012.

Natural Fault Lubricants
Spring 2011 Nature Geoscience

Motion along faults can occur in sudden earthquakes or through steady, aseismic creep. Rock samples retrieved by drilling deep into a creeping section of the San Andreas Fault show that clay minerals in fault rock promote creep behaviour.

Active faults facilitate motion between blocks of crust. They can accommodate this motion through a range of behaviours. At one end of the range, earthquakes cause sudden and violent rupture; at the other end lies a steady creeping motion that does not generate significant seismic activity. The properties that govern these behaviours are central to fault rupture processes and their associated seismic hazard. The San Andreas Fault in California exhibits different types of slip behaviour in its various sections. For example, large damaging earthquakes have occurred on northern segments, in San Francisco in 1906 and Loma Prieta in 1989, whereas some of the central segments of the fault are creeping aseismically today.

Two new papers, published in Nature Geoscience and Nature respectively report that rocks taken directly from an actively creeping segment of the San Andreas Fault (photo; core diamater 10 cm) have low frictional strength, suggesting that the aseismic creep results from an inherent weakness in the fault rocks. Although fault creep can also be generated by high fluid pressures, these laboratory experiments on clay-bearing fault rocks indicate that mineralogy alone may be sufficient to explain why some segments of the San Andreas Fault slip slowly by stable creep, rather than generating large earthquakes. The results can also help explain the San Andreas Fault heat-flow paradox, where the friction between the sliding blocks of crust should generate significant heat close to the fault. However, elevated temperatures are not observed. The inherent weakness of the fault rocks and the lubrication provided by the smetitic clays explains why motion on the fault does not generate large amounts of frictional heat. Furthermore, the results may explain the unusual stress orientation observed for the San Andreas Fault. The San Andreas Fault is oriented at a very high angle compared with the maximum horizontal stress acting on the Californian crust. The presence of inherently weak rocks, now confirmed by the laboratory experiments, would facilitate motion at such a high angle.

Building on the success of the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth, more projects are underway at present to sample fault rocks, for example, from the Nankai seismogenic zone at the plate subduction interface near Japan and at a fault similar to the San Andreas Fault, the Alpine Fault, in New Zealand. By drilling directly into active faults, we can investigate pristine rocks that preserve a record of fault behaviour and the properties governing earthquake genesis. Clay is a mineral phase that can form at low temperatures and is commonly found in crustal fault rocks around the world, so direct observations and laboratory results emphasize that localized clay mineralization offers a compelling explanation for weak fault behaviour, without necessarily requiring other mechanisms.
van der Pluijm, B., Nature Geosci, 4, 217-218, 2011

Fall 2010 GeoScience News

After a 3 year period in the Provost’s Office, Ben van der Pluijm returned to the teaching faculty ranks this Fall. Mostly this means a return to the classroom, since the continuation of his research program was well-supported by the university during these years. PDF Charlie Verdel and research scientist Anja Schleicher anchored a research team that has been focusing on fault rocks in a range of settings, from the US Cordillera to the Appalachians, from the San Andreas fault to the Nankai seismogenic zone. Graduate students Sam Haines and Jim Hnat completed PhDs on Cordilleran normal faults and Southern Appalachian foreland thrusts, respectively, during this period, and new graduate student Tim O’Brien has started his dissertation research on Northern Appalachian faults and foreland diagenesis. Ben will remain involved in a range of university activities, both at U-M and as a consultant-evaluator nationally, while increasingly directing his interests toward the lower-level undergraduate experience. His appointment left little time for geology fieldwork, but he recently returned to the Canadian Rockies to sample fault rocks at major thrusts in the Jasper area. Aided by helicopter, access to key locations was a lot easier than past hikes that would easily take a day for one sample, or were impossible to reach. The picture is a helicopter shot of the most frontal thrust near Hinton, showing spectacular footwall folding and a thin fault gouge layer under the folded carbonate cliff. Getting a sample was tricky, as you can imagine.

Summer 2010 University Record

Tiny clays curb big earthquakes

California's San Andreas fault is notorious for repeatedly generating major earthquakes and for being on the brink of producing the next "big one" in a heavily populated area. But the famously violent fault also has quieter sections, where rocks easily slide against each other without giving rise to damaging quakes. The relatively smooth movement, called creep, happens because the fault creates its own lubricants—slippery clays that form ultra-thin coatings on rock fragments, geologist Ben van der Pluijm and colleagues at the University of Michigan and Germany's Ernst-Moritz-Arndt Universität Institut für Geographie und Geologie report in the July issue of Geology. The question of why some fault zones creep slowly and steadily while others lock for a time and then shift suddenly and violently, spawning earthquakes, has long puzzled scientists. Some have speculated that fluids facilitate slippage, while others have focused on serpentine—a greenish material that can alter to slippery talc.

But when van der Pluijm and colleagues analyzed samples of rock from an actively creeping segment that was brought up from a depth of two miles below the surface as part of the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth (SAFOD) project (picture), they found very little talc. Instead, they found that fractured rock surfaces were coated with a thin layer of smectitic clay, less than 100 nanometers thick, that acts something like grease on ball bearings. "For a long time, people thought you needed a lot of lubricant for creep to occur," said van der Pluijm, who is the Bruce R. Clark Collegiate Professor of Geology and Professor of the Environment. "What we can show is that you don't really need a lot; it just needs to be in the right place. It's a bit like real estate: location, location, location." The nanocoatings occur on the interfaces of broken-up bits of rock in exactly the places where they affect the fault's "weakness"—how easily it moves.

The technique of argon dating provided key evidence, when the researchers determined that these clays, found only in fault rock, formed relatively recently. "The clays are growing in the fault zone, and the fault is coating its own pieces of fragmented rock," van der Pluijm said. "At some point there's enough coating that it begins to drive the behavior of the fault, and creeping kicks in." If the fault is greasing itself, then why do earthquakes still occur? "The problem is that the fault doesn't always move at strands where the coating sits," van der Pluijm said. The San Andreas fault is actually a network of faults, with new strands being added all the time. Because it takes some time for the slick nanocoatings to develop in a new strand, the unlubricated, new strand "gets stuck" for a time and then shifts in a violent spasm.

Although the samples obtained through SAFOD are from a depth of only about two miles, van der Pluijm and colleagues think it's likely the clay nanocoatings also are forming and driving fault behavior at greater depths. What's more, analyses of older, inactive strands suggest that the coatings have been facilitating creep for the millions of years of fault activity. The SAFOD project, which is establishing the world's first underground earthquake observatory, is a major research component of EarthScope, an ambitious, $197-million federal program to investigate the forces that shaped the North American continent and the processes controlling earthquakes, volcanoes and other geological activity.

Spring 2010 University Record

The university has received official notice that it has earned continuing accreditation from The Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. Accreditation is a process that universities undergo to make sure they meet certain standards, and to demonstrate to the public — particularly students — the quality of their infrastructure supporting academic programs and other activities. U-M has been accredited since 1913. A letter sent last week to President Mary Sue Coleman concludes an extensive two-and-a-half-year process that involved faculty and staff working groups, forums, data collection, a comprehensive self-study, a site visit from a team of higher education leaders, and a thorough final review of the university by several commission teams and its board. “Many people — deans, faculty and staff — worked diligently to examine where we are today as a university and to look toward the future of our institution,” Coleman says. “The university not only met the standards for accreditation by the association, but it excelled in nearly all areas, receiving high praise from the review team.”

HLC evaluates institutions in five major categories: mission and integrity; preparing for the future; student learning and effective teaching; acquisition, discovery and application of knowledge; and engagement and service. In particular, the HLC noted that the university, despite declining state support, has weathered the nation’s financial crisis well, such that academic programs remain strong and the university continues to enhance its reputation as a leader in higher education. It commended the university on its demonstrated commitment to diversity and outreach activities; a participatory governance structure that includes faculty, staff and students; the strength of its central leadership in a decentralized setting; and the quality of its faculty and staff. The final report highlights a range of programs and activities at the university including the multidisciplinary learning and team teaching initiative and the commitment to hire 100 new junior faculty in support of interdisciplinarity; the university’s work to involve students in research, outreach and engagement; and its leadership in economic development in a state hard-hit by the recession.

Former Provost Teresa Sullivan, who oversaw the accreditation process, says the extensive self-study that comes with the every-decade review is a chance for the university to examine its current operations, reflect on its goals, and incorporate new ideas and insights into its vision for the future. “The university is grateful to the individuals and groups on campus and across the state who participated in the accreditation discussions,” Sullivan says. “The knowledge the university gained will strengthen and enhance the educational experience of all our students as it informs and shapes plans for programs and activities such as global education, multidisciplinary learning and the evaluation of educational outcomes.” Comprehensive universities of U-M’s size are allowed to choose a special emphasis study to highlight and receive feedback from the commission. The university chose internationalization. “It was very gratifying to see that the Higher Learning Commission was complimentary of our commitment to be a global university,” says Ben van der Pluijm, Bruce R. Clark Collegiate Professor of Geology, who headed the campus reaccreditation process. “And while reviewers praised the many programs we offer to engage students, faculty and staff in international issues and cultures, the commission also has a number of recommendations that will be helpful as we place greater emphasis on internationalization.” Among the suggestions is creating a stronger tie between the myriad international experiences and the curriculum, to offer a central location in support of international activities, and working to achieve more learning across disciplines. A more thorough reaction to and analysis of the report will be forthcoming, van der Pluijm says.

Fall 2008 Geoscience News

For the past few years, Ben van der Pluijm’s research has increasingly focused on shallow fault rocks. Graduate student Sam Haines recently completed his PhD on exhumed faults rocks of the western US, while post-doctoral fellow Anja Schleicher continues to work on samples obtained from drilling of the San Andreas Fault (Earthscope’s SAFOD project). Both studies include exciting Ar-dating components that constrain the timing of faulting processes. MS student Sara Tourscher completed a detailed elemental study on SAFOD samples, constraining dissolution-precipitation and mass transfer in these rocks. PhD student Jim Hnat continues his work on curvature of the Appalachians, bookending our US mountain range projects. Ben’s group also works in the Spanish Pyrenees, the Rwenzori Mountains of Uganda and on the Alpine Fault of New Zealand. Collaboration with UM’s Marin Clark on Tibetan faulting is in the planning stages, as is study of the Michigan Basin substructure with UM geophysicists Peter van Keken and Jeroen Ritsema, and colleagues at Western Michigan University. Since last year Ben has been “on loan” to the Provost Office, where he works on issues related to university accreditation. A new academic world of long-term planning, learning assessment, knowledge production, co-curricular activities, among other issues now occupies much of his time. In support of Ben’s continuing research goals, the university is funding post-doctoral fellow Charlie Verdel, who arrived this fall. Charlie will work on Cordilleran extensional structures with Ben and UM colleague Nathan Niemi, particularly with the goal to date fault rock.

2009 SAFOD video, click here.

"Tiny clays curb big quakes" 2010 press release.

"Auto-Lube Keeps Parts of San Andreas Quiet" 2010 Scientific American Podcast

Research

Structural Geology, Tectonics, Tectonophysics

Field areas

the northern Appalachians, the USA continental interior, southern Ontario and western New York’s Grenville, western Brazil’s Grenville, northern Michigan’s Penokean, northern Spain’s Cantabria, US-Canadian Rockies, San Andreas (CA) and Alpine (NZ) faults.

Topical areas

brittle and ductile faults, deep-crustal architecture, fault gouge and pseudotachylyte, intraplate stresses, oroclines, clay microstructures and textures, magnetic anisotropy, X-ray goniometry, paleomagnetism, geochronology, physical oceanography

Recent Research Topics

A variety of research projects are carried out in the S&T Group; brief descriptions of some of these projects are below. General links to structure and tectonics activities at the University of Michigan are through the TSG page.

Fault Gouge
An integrated study on the formation and mechanical role of clay-bearing fault gouge is carried out in collaboration with mineralogist Laurence Warr, Ar geochronologist Chris Hall and stable isotope geochemists John Valley (Wisconsin) and Andreas Mulch (Frankfurt). We are studying mineralogic reactions and transformation, deformation mechanisms, deformation textures, fluid history and dating of ancient clay gouges (currently faults of the Canadian and US Rockies, normal faults in SW US, thrusts of the Pyrenees) and active continental transforms (San Andreas Fault, Alpine fault, North Anatolian Fault).

Pseudotachylytes
Textural, chemical, geochronologic and thermo-mechanical modeling studies of pseudotachylyte, formed by friction melting, in collaboration with Univ. Strasbourg (France) mineralogist Laurence Warr. We are currently focusing on exhumed samples from New Zealand's Alpine Fault and US Appalachians.

Crustal Architecture
We worked on aspects of the evolution of the Proterozoic Grenville and Penokean orogens in southern Ontario and northern New York, Rondônia (Brazil) and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Our interests concentrated on ductile shear zones (mylonites) and D-P-T-t histories. Research topics have included, shear zone evolution, crystallographic fabrics, fluids in shear zones (using C-O isotopes and electron microbeam techniques), and geochronology. These studies were carried out in collaboration with petrologist Eric Essene (deceased), Ar geochronologist Chris Hall and U/Pb geochronologist Klaus Mezger at Univ. Munster (Germany).

Plate Stresses
Calcite twinning in coarse-grained limestones and rock magnetic methods are used to determine the Paleozoic stress and strain patterns in the frontal portion of the Appalachians and the cratonic cover sequence of North America. In particular we examine the process of oroclinal bending in the Appalachians, North American Rockies, and Cantabrian Mountains of Spain, in collaboration with paleomagnetist Rob Van der Voo.

Other Studies
Processes associated with the formation of ductile and brittle shear zones and foliations are studied using optical microscopy, electron microbeam (microprobe, SEM, AEM/STEM) and rock magnetic techniques. Optical microscopy is used to determine crystallographic preferred fabrics, whereas EM studies focus on defect analysis and microchemical variation in deformed rocks. Aspects of this work are carried out in collaboration with other faculty and researchers. Modern rock magnetic techniques, some of which we recently developed, are used in conjunction with traditional structural analysis to quantify depositional and deformation fabrics. In addition, we are maintaining a high-resolution X-ray texture goniometer for clay fabric analysis.

Example Research Presentations

"Tectonics and collisional architecture of the Grenville margins of Laurentia and Amazonia" (PDF)
"Transformations in (strike-slip) faults" (PDF)
"Fault rock dating" (PDF)

Graduate Students

Boles, Austin (PhD)
Busch, Jay P. (PhD 1996)
Carlson, Katherine A. (MSc 1988)
Cederquist, Donald P. (MSc 1993)
Craddock, John P. (PhD 1988)
Cureton, James S. (MSc 1994)
Gales, Julie E. (MSc 1987)
Haines, Samuel (PhD 2008)
Harris, John H. (MSc 1996)
Hassold, Noralynn J.C. (PhD 2006)
Hnat, James (PhD 2009)
Ho, Nei-Che “Nigel” (PhD 1997)
Housen, Bernard A. (PhD 1994)
Howell, Paul D. (PhD 1993)
Johnson, Kathleen (BSc 1996)
Joseph, Leah H. (PhD 2001)
Kolb, Tracy (BSc, 2003)
Kollmeier, John M. (MSc 1999)
Liss, Margo J. (MSc 1992)
Lombard, Art D. (MSc 1990)
McNamara, Allen K. (MSc 1998)
McWhinnie, Scott T. (MSc 1988)
Meyers, Elizabeth V. (MSc 1996)
Nemkin, Samantha (PhD)
O’Brien, Timothy M. (PhD 2012)
Ong, Philip (MSc, 2004)
Potts, Stephen S. (PhD, 1994)
Rathmell, Mark A. (MSc 1993)
Solum, John P. (PhD 2005)
Streepey, Margaret M. (PhD 2001)
Todaro, Sean M. (MSc 1994)
Tohver, Eric (PhD, 2003)
Tourscher, Sara N. (MSc 2007)
Tuccillo, Mary Ellen (MSc 1990)
Weil, Arlo B. (PhD 2001)
Wellensiek, M. Reid (MSc 1988)
Yonghong, Yan “Jessie” (MSc 2000)

PDFs/Research Associates

Isabel Abad (Jaen, Spain) - mineralogy
Andrew Aplin (Newcastle, UK) - clay fabrics
Ruarri Day-Stirrat (Jackson School/BEG, Shell) - clay fabrics
Elisa Fitz-Diaz (PDF; Minnesota) - fold dating
Neal Iverson (Iowa) - glacial till fabrics
Gerd Jacob (Univ. Halle, Germany; deceased)
Peter Knoop (Res Sci) - field and classroom IT
Agnes Kontny (Heidelberg) - electron microscopy
Conall Mac Niocaill (PDF; Oxford University, UK) - tectonics, paleomagnetism
Jerry Magloughlin (PDF; Colorado State University)
Klaus Mezger (PDF; Universität Münster, Germany) - geochronology
Nyman, Matthew W. (PDF) - structural geology
Pares, Josep M. (Adj Res Sci; Bilbao, Spain) - rock magnetism
Jeffrey Rahl (Washington&Lee) - structural geology, Spanish Pyrenees
Carl Richter (PDF; Univ. Louisiana)
Schedl, Andrew D. (PDF) - rock analogues
Anja Schleicher (PDF, Res Sci; Heidelberg) - electron microscopy, clay mineralogy
John Stamatakos (Adj Res Sci; Desert Research Institute) - paleomagnetism
Charles Verdel (PDF; Queensland) - Cordilleran faults and thermal structure
Peter Vrolijk (PDF; ExxonMobil) - fault gouge
Laurence Warr (Greifswald, Germany) - clay mineralogy, friction melts

Teaching

Interdisciplinary undergraduate teaching (Global Change Program, MLTT) IT-supported classroom education (LectureTools^TM, GeoPocket), IT-supported field-based education (GeoPad^TM)

Teaching Info

New: Toward a sustainable human future (Earth 159)
Global Change: Curriculum and Degree Program
(GC1/GC2/Minor ); JGE paper
Environmental Geology: Env/GS284
Earth Structure: GS351/451
Tectonophysics: GS525
How Earth Works: GS205, GS207, GS265

LectureTools - Interactive classroom environment
GeoPad - TabletPC field environment (see also Teaching)
GeoPocket - Classroom and field IT enhancements; PPT06

Example Teaching Presentations

Global Change Curriculum and Minor (2004)
"Interdisciplinarity before Disciplinarity" (2007)
"LectureTools - Promoting student engagement in large introductory classes through laptop-based, interactive instruction" (2008)
U-M President's Multidisciplinary Learning and Team Teaching Initiative

Example Lectures

General Science
Early Earth (2010); see http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/
Surface Hazards (2009); see http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/
Energy (2010); see http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/
Climate (2010); see http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/
Human Demographics (2011); see http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/

Earth Structure
Rheology (2010); see http://globalchange.umich.edu/ben/ES/#powerpoints
Brittle Deformation (2010); see http://globalchange.umich.edu/ben/ES/#powerpoints
Ductile Deformation (2010); see http://globalchange.umich.edu/ben/ES/#powerpoints
Whole Earth Structure (2010); see http://globalchange.umich.edu/ben/ES/#powerpoints

Current and Past Graduates

Victoria Brescoll (BSc, 1995)
Jay Busch (PhD, 1996; ExxonMobil, Houston)
Katherine A. Carlson (MSc, 1988)
Donald P. Cederquist (MSc 1998; Envirosense)
John P. Craddock (PhD, 1988; Macalester)
Jim Cureton (MSc, 1994; San Francisco)
Julie E. Gales (MSc, 1987)
Ben Gebarski (BSc)
Brita R. Graham (BSc, 1998; USGS)
John Harris (MSc, 1997, Texaco, Bakersfield)
Sam Haines (PhD, 2008; Chevron) Gouge formation and fluid-fault rock interaction
Noralynn Hassold - Antarctic depositional environments; grain size analysis and magnetic fabrics (PhD, 2007)
Jim Hnat (PhD, 2009; Shell) Appalachian oroclines; deformation fabrics
Nei-Che Ho (PhD, 1998; PeopleSoft)
Laura Holladay (BSc, 2001)
Bernard Housen (PhD, 1994; Western Washington University)
Paul Howell (PhD, 1993; University of Kentucky)
Sarah Jacobson (BSc, 2000)
Kathleen Johnson (BSc, 1996)
Leah Joseph (PhD, 2000; Hobart and William Smith Colleges)
John Kollmeier (MSc, 2002; ExxonMobil)
Giselle M. Knudsen (BSc, 1994)
Laura C. Knutson (BSc, 1989)
Angela M. Lessard (BSc, 1994)
Margo J. Liss (MSc, 1992)
Art D. Lombard (MSc, 1990; Conoco)
Allen McNamara (MSc, 1998; Univ. Michigan)
Scott T. McWhinnie (MSc, 1988)
Liz Meyers (MSc, 1996; Alaska)
Tim O'Brien (PhD) Appalachian faults and foreland
Philip Ong (MSc, 2004; Univ Hawaii) Pennsylvania Salient
Stephen Potts (PhD, 1993; CTI and Associates, MI)
Mark A. Rathmell (MSc, 1993)
John Solum (PhD, 2005; Sam Houston University) Fault rocks
Nick Speyer (BSc, 2005)
Meg Streepey (PhD, 2001; Earlham College) NY Grenville extension
Eric Tohver (PhD, 2003; NSF Postdoctoral Fellow) Brazilian Grenville
Sean Todaro (MSc, 1994; Woodward-Clyde, Denver)
Sara Tourscher - SAFOD fault rocks (MSc, 2006) SAFOD fault rocks
Mary Ellen Tuccillo (MSc, 1990) Parry Sound Shear Zone
Arlo B. Weil (PhD, 2001. Bryn Mawr)
M. Reid Wellensiek (MSc, 1988)
Yan “Jessie” Yonghong (MSc, 2000)

Facilities

The Department of Geological Sciences is well equipped for modern structural/tectonic studies. The distributed structural geology laboratory cluster consists of a workroom and lounge (4534 CCL) with several research optical microscopes, including a Leitz Ortholux with photographic attachment, a dedicated Zeiss U-stage microscope with computer, facilities for real-time, microscope-based deformation experiments of analogs, and map analysis. In addition to a group of networked computers with peripherals, the laboratories host a TabletPC-based field computing (GeoPad) and classroom handheld (GeoPocket) facility (4505F CCL).

A texture goniometer, using an Enraf-Nonius single-crystal diffractometer, is located in the X-ray Laboratory (2005 CCL), which also houses a Scintag diffractometer for powder samples, and several magnetic fabric analysis devices (including a Kappabridge and SI2 bridges) are housed in the Paleomagnetics Laboratory (4538 CCL).

The EMAL houses a Philips 120 kV STEM, a Hitachi SEM and two Cameca microprobes for micro-structural and micro-chemical analysis. Higher-voltage electron microscopes are located in EMAL-North Campus.

A dedicated sampling laboratory is equipped with separation and preparation equipment (5553 CCL). Other departmental facilities offer stable and radiogenic isotope analysis, ICP and other geochemical facilities. Extensive technical support is available for all these facilities.

Selected Publications

A complete list of hotlinked publications can be found on my publications page or from ResearchedID .

A selection of representative work is below.

Duvall, A., Clark, M., van der Pluijm, B., Li, C., 2011. Direct dating of Eocene reverse faulting in northeastern Tibet using Ar-dating of fault clays and low-temperature thermochronometry. EPSL, 304, 520-526.

Hnat, J., van der Pluijm, B.A., 2011. Foreland signature of indenter tectonics: Insights from calcite twinning analysis in the Tennessee salient of the Southern Appalachians, USA. Lithosphere, 3, 317-327.

Rahl, J.M., Haines, S.H., van der Pluijm, B.A., 2011. Links between orogenic wedge deformation and erosional exhumation: evidence from Illite age analysis of fault rock and detrital thermochronometry of syn-tectonic conglomerates in the Spanish Pyrenees. EPSL, 307, 180-190.

van der Pluijm, B., 2011. Natural fault lubricants. Nature Geosci, 4, 217-218.

Schleicher, A.M., van der Pluijm, B.A., Warr, L.N., 2010. Nanocoatings of clay and creep of the San Andreas fault at Parkfield, California. Geology 38, 667-670.

Haines, S.H., van der Pluijm, B.A., Ikari, M., Saffer, D., Marone, C., 2009. Clay fabrics in natural and artificial fault gouge. J Geophys. Res. 114, B05406, doi:10.1029/2008JB005866.

Day-Stirrat, R.J., Aplin, A.C., Środoń J., van der Pluijm, B.A., 2008. Diagenetic reorientation of phyllo-silicate minerals in Paleogene mudstones of the Podhale Basin, southern Poland. Clays Clay Min., 56, 100-111.

Ong, P.F., van der Pluijm, B.A., Van der Voo, R., 2007. Early rotation and late folding in the Pennsylvania Salient (US Appalachians): Evidence from calcite-twinning analysis of Paleozoic carbonates. Geol. Soc. Am. Bull., 119, 796-804.

Rahl, J.M, Ehlers, T.A., van der Pluijm, B.A., 2007. Quantifying transient erosion with detrital thermo-chronology from syntectonic basin deposits. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 256, 147-161.

Warr, L.N., van der Pluijm, B.A., Tourscher, S., 2007. The age and depth of exhumed friction melts along the Alpine Fault, New Zealand. Geology, 35, 603-606.

Schleicher, A.M., van der Pluijm, B.A., Solum, J.G., Warr, L.N., 2006. Origin and significance of clay-coated fractures in mudrock fragments of the SAFOD borehole (Parkfield, California). Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, doi:10.1029/2006GL026505.

Solum, J.G., Hickman, S., Lockner, D., Moore, D., van der Pluijm, B.A., Schleicher, A.M., Evans, J.P., 2006. Mineralogical characterization of protolith and fault rocks from the SAFOD Main Hole. Geophys. Res. Letters. 33, doi:10.1029/2006GL027285.

Tohver, E., Teixeira, W., van der Pluijm, B., Geraldes, M.C., Bettencourt, J.S., Rizotto, G., 2006. Restored transect across the exhumed Grenville orogen of Laurentia and Amazonia, with implications for crustal architecture. Geology, 34, 669-672.

van der Pluijm, B.A., Vrolijk, P.J., Pevear, D.R., Hall, C.M., Solum, J.G., 2006. Fault dating in the Canadian Rocky Mountains: evidence for late Cretaceous and early Eocene orogenic pulses. Geology, 34, 837-840.

Solum, J.G., van der Pluijm, B.A., Peacor, D.R., 2005. Neocrystallization, fabrics and age of clay minerals from an exposure of the Moab Fault, Utah. J. Struct. Geol., 27, 1563-1576.

Streepey, M.M., Lithgow-Bertelloni, C., van der Pluijm, B.A., Essene, E.J., Magloughlin, J.F., 2004. Exhumation of a collisional orogen: a perspective from the North American Grenville Province. Geol. Soc. Am. Memoir, 197, 391-410

Pares, J.M, van der Pluijm, B.A., 2003. Magnetic fabrics in low-strain mudrocks: AMS of pencil structures in the Knobs Formation, Valley and Ridge Province, US Appalachians. J. Struct. Geol., 25, 1349-1358.

ES cover van der Pluijm, B.A. and Marshak, S., 2003. Earth Structure - An Introduction to Structural Geology and Tectonics (2nd edition). WW. Norton, 674 p.

Joseph, L.H., Rea, D.R., van der Pluijm, B.A., Gleason, J.D., 2002. Antarctic environmental variability since the Late Miocene: ODP site 745, the East Kerguelen sediment drift. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 201, 127-142. (106)

Pares, J.M, van der Pluijm, B.A., 2002. Phyllosilicate fabric characterization by Low-Temperature Magnetic Anisotropy (LT-AMS). Geophys. Res. Lett. 10.1029/2002GL015459 (Dec).

Tohver, E., van der Pluijm, B.A., Van der Voo, R., Rizotto, G., Scandolara, J.E., 2002. Paleogeography of the Amazon craton at 1.2 Ga: early Grenvillian collision with the Llano segment of Laurentia. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 199, 185-200.

van der Pluijm, B.A., Hall, C.M., Vrolijk, P., Pevear, D.R., Covey, M., 2001 The dating of shallow faults in the Earth’s crust. Nature, 412, 172-174.

Weil, A.B., Van der Voo, R., van der Pluijm, B.A., 2001. Oroclinal bending and evidence against the Pangea megashear: the Cantabria-Asturias Arc (northern Spain). Geology, 29, 991-994.

Ho, N.C., Peacor, D.R., van der Pluijm, B.A., 1999. Preferred orientation of phyllosilicates in Gulf Coast mudstones and relation to the smectite-illite transition. Clays and Clay Minerals, 47, 495-504.

Howell, P.D., van der Pluijm, B.A., 1999. Structural sequences and styles of subsidence in the Michigan basin. Geol. Soc. Am. Bull., 111, 974-991.

Vrolijk, P., van der Pluijm, B.A., 1999. Clay gouge. J. Struct. Geol., 21, 1039-1048.

Joseph, L.H., Rea, D.K., van der Pluijm, B.A., 1998. Use of grain size and magnetic fabric analyses to distinguish among depositional environments. Paleoceanography, 13, 491-501.

Busch, J.P, Mezger, K., and van der Pluijm, B.A., 1997. Suturing and extensional reactivation in the Grenville Orogen, Canada. Geology, 25, 507-510.

Mac Niocaill, C., van der Pluijm, B.A., and Van der Voo, R., 1997. Ordovician paleogeography and the evolution of the Iapetus Ocean. Geology, 25, 159-162.

van der Pluijm, B.A., Craddock, J.P., Graham. B.R., and Harris, J.H., 1997. Paleostress in cratonic North America: implications for deformation of continental interiors. Science, 277, 794-796.

Busch, J.P., and van der Pluijm, B.A., 1995. Calcite textures, microstructures and rheological properties of marble mylonites in the Bancroft shear zone, Ontario, Canada. J. Struct. Geol., 17, 677-688.

Richter, C., and van der Pluijm, B.A., 1994. Separation of paramagnetic and ferrimagnetic susceptibilities using low-temperature magnetic susceptibilities and comparison with high field methods. Phys. Earth Planet. Inter., 82, 113-123.

van der Pluijm, B.A., Mezger, K., Cosca, M.A., and Essene, E.J., 1994. Determining the significance of high-grade shear zones by using temperature-time paths, with examples from the Grenville Orogen. Geology, 22, 743-746.

Mezger, K., Essene, E.J., van der Pluijm, B.A., and Halliday, A.N., 1993. U-Pb geochronology of the Grenville Orogen of Ontario and New York: constraints on ancient crustal tectonics. Contrib. Mineral. Petrol., 114, 13-26.

Housen, B.A. and van der Pluijm, B.A., 1991. Slaty cleavage development and magnetic anisotropy fabrics. J. Geoph. Res. (B), 96, 9937-9946.

Mezger, K., van der Pluijm, B.A., Essene, E.J., and Halliday, A.N., 1991. Synorogenic collapse: a perspective from the middle crust, the Proterozoic Grenville orogen. Science, 254, 695-698.