Title: Graduate Student

Group: Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometer Laboratory (TIMS Lab)

Area(s): Geology

Research Summary:  I earned an MS from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in 2024 under Professor Willy Guenthner studying applications of low-temperature thermochronology and inverse thermal history modeling to the deep time thermal histories of cratons. Although my research has pivoted, this work motivated my interests in the timing and rates of geologic events, processes responsible for forming and altering continental crust, and how we engage with deep time research.

I am currently researching the mechanisms and timescales of magmatism in the middle crust. All models of magmatic systems have implicit assumptions of how slowly (or quickly) melt is generated and emplaced, so geochronology is a natural supplement to testing and expanding hypotheses for plutonism. Yet, combined studies of high temporal precision and high spatial resolution are notably lacking in petrology literature. I am using CA-ID-TIMS to U-Pb date zircons from the Serre Batholith, southern Italy along a (paleo)vertical transect. The batholith itself formed ca. 300 Ma, but recent Alpine tectonics have exposed a nearly continuous ~25 km thick cross-section of the middle-to-lower crust--including underlying migmatites thought to be the melt source. This makes the Serre Batholith and surrounding crust ideal for testing hypotheses related to crustal anatexis, melt extraction, emplacement, collisional tectonics, and ultimately batholith formation.

I am also interested in geo-thermochronologic method development, deep time continental histories of all aspects, the heat budgets of geologic systems, pedagogy, expanding diversity in the geosciences, and black coffee. Please reach out if you have any questions! I'm happy to talk.

Keywords: geochronology, thermochronology, igneous petrology, cratons, deep time