Matt Rioux

Abstract: To understand the timing and rates of geological processes, it is necessary to precisely date geologic events.  The “gold standard” for geochronology is uranium-lead (U-Pb) dating of the mineral zircon. In this talk, I shall review the current state of the art for zircon U-Pb geochronology. I shall then present an example from my own work showing how high-precision U-Pb dating can be used to study plate tectonic processes. Subduction zones are a key piece of the plate tectonic cycle, where old oceanic crust is recycled back into the Earth’s mantle, and new crust is formed from the resulting magmatism. I shall present new data from work I have done in Oman, where combined high-precision dating and geochemical analyses provide new insight into the initiation of a new subduction zone, a critical, but poorly understood, component of plate tectonics.

Biography:

Speaker's Bio: Matt Rioux completed his undergraduate degree at Boston University and his PhD in the Department of Earth Science at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He Completed a post-doc in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at MIT, before returning to the University of California at Santa Barbara as a Research Scientist. He is now an Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of Earth Science at UCSB

Address:United States