THIS WEEK:

Presenter: Harry Matchette-Downes

Title: Grains of truth: What can zircons tell us about continent-continent collisions?

Abstract: In the westernmost corner of the Tibetan Plateau, a band of metasedimentary rocks extends along the Karakoram Fault towards the Pamir Mountains. If we can reconstruct how these components of the Himalayan mountain belt were related before India collided with Eurasia, it will help us to understand continent-continent collisions. With this goal in mind, I will present age distributions of zircons found in the metasediments, estimated using uranium-lead geochronology. These new data support the idea that these new samples share a common tectonic history with the Qiangtang Terrane (western Tibet) and the Central Pamir Terrane. In this talk I will not assume that the audience has prior knowledge of zircon geochronology or the tectonic history of Tibet.

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General Information: The EAPS Student Seminar is an informal gathering of EAPS students and post-docs that occurs most Wednesday evenings on the 9th floor. Food is served at 5:45pm and a talk begins at 6:00pm. Talks can be anywhere between 15 and 30 minutes, but we are flexible. Generally, people present something related to their research, but we also encourage people to talk to us about anything science-related that they find interesting, too. However, remember that this is an EAPS-wide seminar, so try to make it accessible to all disciplines!

Student Seminar is a lot of fun and a great opportunity to practice presenting and learn about what your peers in the department are working on. Speakers get the chance to give a scientific talk to a friendly and insightful audience that offers helpful feedback.