Geology

Geoscience research facilities include geochemical analytical and computational equipment, cryogenic magnetometer, and mineral and rock preparation laboratories. State-of-the-art microscopic facilities are available through the Florida Center for Analytical Electron Microscopy, including the EPMA, SEM and TEM. Fully equipped laboratories for micropaleontological and sediment analysis have microphotographic equipment and carbonate analyzers. Facilities are also available for research in high temperature/high pressure experimental petrology, experimental structural geology, and ore mineral microscopy with heating/freezing stage for fluid inclusion studies. The department also owns a complete array of instruments for field geophysics and hydrologic studies.

Our research areas include:

• Geophysics, Paleomagnetism & Remote Sensing
  • Geophysical investigative techniques using gravity, magnetism, seismic reflection and refraction, earthquake seismology, thermal properties, and satellite imagery
  • Land-based geophysical studies of the Caribbean and South American seismicity and crustal structure
  • Environmental geophysical studies in the South Florida and Caribbean Regions
• Hydrology, Water Resources & Environmental Geology
  • Field and modeling approach to groundwater flow and solute fluxes in the subsurface and near subsurface environments.
  • Interaction of surface water and groundwater, solute transport, chemical and isotopic tracing techniques
  • Watershed hydrology in Florida, other U.S. locations and Central America
• Stratigraphy & Sedimentology
  • Sedimentary petrology, sedimentary environments, paleoceanography, sequence stratigraphy, cyclic stratigraphy, microfacies analysis and basin analysis
  • Evolution of the sedimentary basins of South Florida, the Caribbean and Meso-America and their relationships to global and regional tectonics
• Structural Geology & Tectonics
  • Field-oriented research on methods of structural analysis
  • Analysis of geologic deformations based upon the principles of mechanics
  • Structural geology of the Caribbean and South America

View faculty profiles below for more information.