Lindsay Schoenbohm

Lindsay Schoenbohm and her research team address questions in the rapidly growing, interdisciplinary field of climate-tectonic interactions such as: (1) is it possible that surficial processes such as glacial and fluvial erosion, can collectively, or even individually, dictate the rate and spatial pattern of rock deformation? (2) how do continental plateaus grow? What is the role of climate in initiating, enlarging and sustaining plateaus?; and (3) how does the landscape reflect tectonic deformation? Conversely, how do we read the landscape to quantify the rates and patterns of deformation? The primary tool her group uses for this work is structural and geomorphic field-based mapping. Her team also dates geomorphic surfaces and determines spatially averaged erosion rates using cosmogenic nuclides, and works with digital elevation data and satellite imagery for landscape analysis. Research is focused primarily in around the margins of the Andean and Tibetan plateaus because of the extreme gradients in both climate and tectonic processes which operate there.