UC Davis rock garden
UC Davis rock garden

UC Davis Experts to Speak at the American Geophysical Union Annual Meeting

UC Davis scientists from fields across earth and space science will present their work during the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, Dec. 12-16. More information about the meeting is available at: http://fallmeeting.agu.org/2016/

This tip sheet highlights a range of UC Davis research, from the origin of Earth and the moon, to climate change impacts on the California Coast, to estimating the potential for future earthquakes. 

Please feel free to share the tip sheet with colleagues. Click on the presenter name to view an abstract online, or visit the AGU Virtual Press Room to download a PDF copy.

Monday, Dec. 12

 8 a.m. Argon Diffusion Measured in Rhyolite Melt at 100 MPa
Nicholas Weldon measures argon diffusion in lava from Buck Mountain, California, to better understand argon-argon ages for Cenozoic volcanism. V11B-2768
 
8 a.m. Ecosystem Dynamics of the Microbial Mats in Lake Fryxell, Antarctica
Megan Krusor finds microbial communities in Antarctica’s Lake Fryxell — an analog for Mars — differ between depths and mat layers and affect local environmental conditions in community-specific ways. B11F-0517
 
8 a.m. Shock Temperatures of Major Silicates in Rocky Planets
Erik Davies presents experimental results that suggest the amount of material subjected to shock-induced vaporization during giant impacts is larger than currently estimated. MR11A-2376
 
1:40 p.m. Carbon Sequestration Within Northeast Pacific Seagrass Beds
Brady Charles O’Donnell explores factors that influence carbon sequestration by seagrass on the California Coast. B13A-0554

5:45 p.m. Distributions of Single-Clast Cosmogenic Inheritance: Implications for Dating and Quantifying Surface Processes (Invited)
Veronica Prush shows how bias in surface exposure age-dates may lead to inaccurate estimates of fault slip-rates. EP14B-08

Tuesday, Dec. 13

 8 a.m. Geospatial Analysis for Flood-Risk Management, Resilience, and US Policy
Nicholas Pinter documents an increase in flood insurance claims and losses, even with extreme events (Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy) excluded, and explores possible reasons why. H21A-1379 

8 a.m. Influence of Persistent Exchangeable Oxygen on Biogenic Silica δ18O in Deep Sea Cores
Anthony Menicucci finds exchangeable oxygen levels in foraminifera shells decrease as sample age and depth of core increases. B21H-0519

8 a.m. Were lakes on early Mars perennially ice-covered?
Frances Rivera-Hernandez compares sand mounds and ridges in ice-covered Antarctic lakes to paleo-lake deposits on Mars. P21C-2112

8 a.m. Nowcasting: A New Approach to the Statistics of Aftershocks
Alexis Giguere uses “nowcasting” to estimate the current state of a seismically-active area and the potential for occurrence of the next large earthquake. S21A-2689

10:50 a.m. Discontinuous Galerkin (DG) Method for Solving Time Dependent Convection-Diffusion Type Temperature Equation : Demonstration and Comparison with Other Methods in the Mantle Convection Code ASPECT
Ying He tackles one of the most common numerical challenges in mantle dynamics simulations — modeling the temperature field. T22D-03

1:40 p.m. New Numerical Approaches to Thermal Convection in a Compositionally Stratified Fluid
Elbridge Gerry Puckett compares numerical approaches for modeling lower mantle structures such as the large, low shear velocity provinces (LLVSP) below Africa and the South Pacific. DI23A-2589

1:55 p.m. Sustaining Open Source Communities through Hackathons – An Example from the ASPECT Community
Lorraine Hwang shows how hackathons benefit ASPECT, an open source, parallel, extensible finite element code to simulate thermal convection. IN23E-02

2:16 p.m. Whole Earth Modeling: Developing and Disseminating Scientific Software for Computational Geophysics (Invited)
Louise Kellogg reviews pilot methods for crediting scientific software developed at the Computational Infrastructure for Geodynamics. IN23F-03

4 p.m. Geobiology: A Conceptual Framework for Understanding Earth’s Surface (Invited)
Dawn Sumner reveals how modern microbial communities provide insights into the interactions between life and Earth that have shaped our planet’s history. B24B-01

4:15 p.m. Potential Decoupling Between the Regional Monsoon Intensity and Local Moisture Conditions During the Last Millennium in Central Brazil
Barbara Elaine Wortham finds strontium levels in South American caves reflect local water-rock interactions, providing a historic record of the South American Monsoon. PP24A-02

Wednesday, Dec. 14

8 a.m. Metastability of Subducted Slabs in the Mantle Transition Zone: A Collaborative Geodynamic, Petrologic, and Seismological Approach
Magali Billen assesses the impact of mineral metastability on dynamic subduction models to better quantify the density and buoyancy changes in subducting slabs. DI31B-2639

8 a.m. Mg-Banding in the Non-Spinose Planktic Foraminifer Neogloboquadrina dutertrei Caused by Diurnal Light/Dark Cycle
Jennifer Fehrenbacher documents a new example of diurnal shell growth cycle in foraminfera, which suggests diurnal cycles are an intrinsic component of biomineralization in forams. PP31C-2297

8 a.m. Changes in Ocean Circulation with an Ice-Free Arctic: Reconstructing Early Holocene Arctic Ocean Circulation Using Geochemical Signals from Individual Neogloboquadrina pachyderma (sinistral) Shells
Caitlin Livsey reconstructs the hydrography of the early Holocene Arctic sea ice minimum in order to develop a conceptual model of Arctic Ocean oceanographic change due to global warming. C31B-0752

8 a.m. Investigation of the heat source(s) of the Surprise Valley Geothermal System, Northern California
Nicole Tanner identifies fluid transport pathways within the Surprise Valley Hot Springs in Cedarville, California, using a combination of geophysical methods. NS31A-1948

8 a.m. Improved Rock Magnetic Characterization From Trajectories of Unsaturated Magnetic Hysteresis Parameters
Alexander Roth discusses a method to overcome some of the complexity in assessing magnetic grains in paleomagnetic samples. GP31A-1278

9:45 a.m. Implications of a Reservoir Model for the Evolution of Deep Carbon
Louise Kellogg presents a reservoir model for the evolution of carbon in Earth's deep interior that explains the loss of carbon from Earth's atmosphere to its mantle. V31E-08

1:40 p.m. A Reservoir Model for the Evolution of Deep Carbon in the Earth
Marie Weisfeiler reports initial results of a chemical geodynamic reservoir model for the evolution of carbon in the Earth. V33C-3137

3:10 p.m. Activity of the Mill Creek and Mission Creek fault strands of the San Andreas fault through the San Gorgonio Pass
Alexander Morelan finds the Mission Creek strand of the San Andreas fault is active and could rupture through the San Gorgonio Pass, bypassing the structural complexity of the San Gorgonio Pass thrust to the south. T33D-07

Thursday, Dec. 15

8 a.m. Accretion of the Moon after a High-Energy, High-Angular Momentum Giant Impact (Invited)
Sarah Stewart presents a new model for how the moon formed. V41D-01

8 a.m. New Holocene Slip-rate Sites Along the Mojave San Andreas Fault Near Palmdale, CA
Elaine Young documents the slip rate for the Mojave San Andreas fault. T41B-2907

10:20 a.m. The Nature of the (Visualization) Game: Challenges and Opportunities from Computational Geophysics (Invited)
Louise Kellogg describes how big data, modeling and visualization are becoming increasingly vital tools for discovery, understanding, education, and communication in the geosciences. ED42B-01

1:40 p.m. Plagioclase, Amphibole, and Magnetite in the 1991 Pinatubo Reservoir: Timescales of Crystallization and Storage
Cassi Ryan King constrains the crystallization and thermal history of the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption, providing insight into magma storage within this system. V43C-3166

1:40 p.m. Nowcasting Induced Seismicity
Molly Luginbuhl applies “nowcasting” to induced seismicity at The Geysers geothermal region in California and to induced seismicity in Oklahoma. S43C-2881

2:10 p.m. The Role of Academic Institutions in Leveraging Engagement and Action on Climate Change
Tessa Hill reviews examples from universities, professional societies and other institutions where engagement on climate science is structurally encouraged and supported. ED43F-03

Friday, Dec. 16

8 a.m. Recycling, Remobilization, and Eruption of Crystals from the Lassen Volcanic Center
Kevin Schrecengost present preliminary data for the 1915 Lassen Peak Chaos Crags eruptions that indicate the importance of local, small-scale rejuvenation and mixing within a long-lived magmatic system. V51C-01

8 a.m. Source of Volatiles in Earth’s Deep Mantle from Neon Isotope Systematics in the South Atlantic
Curtis Williams analyzes the neon isotopic composition of mantle-derived materials from the South Atlantic, challenging the notion that the entire mantle acquired volatiles from solar wind implanted meteoritic materials. P51A-2121

8 a.m. Global Links to Local Carbon Cycling Perturbation
Jitao Chen reports carbon and strontium isotopic records in shells from the late Mississippian in South China indicate stepwise ice buildup prior to widespread glaciation across the mid-Carboniferous boundary. PP51C-2315

8 a.m. Relict Basin Closure Accommodates Continental Convergence with Minimal Crustal Shortening or Deceleration of Plate Motion as Inferred from Detrital Zircon Provenance in the Caucasus
Eric Cowgill documents post-collisional subduction of a small relict ocean basin in the Greater Caucasus Mountains, a scenario accounts for both shortening deficits and delays in plate deceleration during collisions. T51A-2883

8 a.m. The AR Sandbox: Augmented Reality in Geoscience Education (Invited)
Oliver Kreylos reports that Augmented Reality (AR) Sandbox installations in more than 150 institutions have shown high audience engagement and long dwell times of often 20 minutes and more. ED51H-0843

1:40 p.m. Exploring the Geological Expression of the Transition from Subduction to Continental Collision in the Georgian Greater Caucasus
Charles Cashman Trexler finds 230 kilometers of shortening across the Greater Caucasus Mountains, providing insights into how the subduction/collision transition is present in the surface geologic record. T53B-01

4 p.m. Nowcasting Earthquakes
John Rundle applies nowcasting, a term originating from economics and finance, to seismically active regions to determine the current state of a fault system, and its current level of progress through the earthquake cycle. NH54B-01

— Becky Oskin, content strategist in the UC Davis College of Letters ad Science

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