I investigated rifts in multiple stages of their formation, from the failed Mid-Continent Rift (MCR), to the active Red Sea Rift. Each rifting stage presents its own challenges but by studying each stage individually I have gained insight into the rifting process. The MCR, an an…
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The Aegean Extensional Province (AEP) in Western Anatolia includes three major graben systems that have formed as a result of N-S tectonic extension in the latest Cenozoic. The 6 to 30-km-wide Alasehir-Gediz Graben (AGG) in the north contains ∼3-km-thick Miocene and Plio-Quatern…
The Philippine Sea Plate has been surrounded by subduction zones throughout Cenozoic time due to the convergence of the Eurasian, Pacific and Indian-Australian plates. Existing Philippine Sea Plate reconstructions have been made based primarily on magnetic lineations produced by…
By using arrival time data from the Indonesian Meteorological and Geophysical Agency (MGA), International Seismological Center (ISC) and United State Geological Survey (USGS), and the Centroid Moment Tensor (CMT) solutions of Harvard, I studied the tectonic features in north Sum…
The Atlas Mountains of North Africa, located in the African foreland of the Alpine mountain belts, comprise a 2,000 km long Cenozoic mountain chain whose development was guided by older Mesozoic rift structures. This dissertation examines one component, the Middle Atlas Mountain…
A key question in earthquake seismology is whether earthquake sources in different tectonic regions are functionally equivalent in terms of radiated ground motion. This thesis compares the apparent earthquake source radiation for six different tectonic regions covering Japan, Me…
This dissertation addresses two interrelated topics: interpretation of data obtained by a broadband phased three-component seismic array and development of new techniques to process and visualize these data. First, I present two techniques I developed for interactive, three-dime…
Gold has been mined in the Eastern Desert of Egypt since the time of the Pharaohs, yet the geologic setting of the gold mineralization, the structural controls, and its association with hydrothermal alteration zones is still not fully understood. A common application of remote s…
This dissertation includes three separate chapters, each demonstrating the interpretive utility of potential field (gravity and magnetic) geophysical datasets at various scales and in various geologic environments. The locations of these studies are the central San Luis Basin of…
The Kazakhstan orocline, a pair of concentric horseshoe-shaped volcanic arcs of Devonian (external) and late Paleozoic (internal) age, is thought to have formed during the amalgamation of Eurasia. Paleomagnetic investigations of several volcanic complexes ranging in age from Sil…
The Saghand area is underlain by rocks comprising a part of the Central Iranian continental terrane. The Central Iranian terrane records a prolonged history of fragmentation, drift, collision and amalgamation, which reflects the tectonic development of the Alpine-Himalayan oroge…
Enhancement methods applied on various satellite images (ASTER, ETM and RADAR SAT-1) facilitated the identification and mapping of tectonic fractures in the Zagros fold-and-thrust belt in southwest Iran. The results of the fracture analysis on these enhanced images reveal four p…
Paleoseismologic trenches excavated across the North Anatolian fault in Turkey are used to characterize the spatial-temporal pattern of seismic moment release on this plate-bounding strike-slip fault. Trenches at Alayurt reveal evidence for at least four (possibly five) surface …
This work utilizes the Four-Dimensional Plates (4DPlates) software, and Differential Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (DInSAR) to examine plate-scale, regional-scale and local-scale kinematics of the Afro-Arabian Rift System with emphasis on the Afar Depression in Ethiop…
The deformation of a plate due to boundary stresses is investigated using both the elastic and viscous models for plate deformation. The role of basal shear stress (at the lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary), oblique convergence and strength inhomogeneity are investigated for mo…
Identification and characterization of the Paleozoic Suwanee basin sedimentary sequence and the associated Pangea supercontinent transcurrent fault are critical in furthering our present understanding of tectonic history and its impacts today. However, explicit bounding of the S…
Seismologists use the seismic wavefield to image the Earth’s structure at a wide range of scales, from a few meters to 1000s of km. Sources (earthquakes, explosions, etc.) of seismic waves can also be located and distinguished using the seismic wavefield. In this dissertation, I…
Since the Mesozoic, the west coast of North America has experienced near continuous right-lateral shear. Over this time, a series of exotic crustal terranes accreted to and translated along the expanding westward edge of the continent. In this dissertation, I use low-temperature…