News

• Wanying Wang graduates with PhD(05/2022)

  
  

• Simone Puel wins outstanding grad student award at UTIG (05/2022)

• Lucky to be part of an epic field trip to Northern Chile led by Onno Oncken (04/2022)

• Subduction zone modeling study published in Nature (11/2021)

  • Gerya, T.V., Bercovici, D., and Becker, T.W.: Dynamic slab segmentation due to brittle-ductile damage in the outer rise. Nature, 599, 245-250, 2021. (PDF)

• Links between Imaged Mantle Structure and Dynamics (10/2021)

  It was a priviledge to present JSG Geodynamics results at the Links between Imaged Mantle Structure and Dynamics workshop at the College de France, Paris, in October 2021. Exciting to discuss deep mantle dynamics in person again, and cool mineral physics talks.
  

• Megathrust Modeling project funded (08/2021)

  The NSF FRES program funded a multi-institutional effort to enhance physics-based models for megathrust hazard and use computational geoscience for alternative pathways for entry into a more diverse geoscience community. Check out the MTMOD web page, and read more in the UT News release.

• Three most recent publications (see all publications)

  	146	Heilman, E. and Becker, T. W. (2022): Plume-slab interactions can shut off subduction. Geophys. Res. Lett., 2022.	PDF
  	145	Behr, W. M., Holt, A. F., Becker, T. W., and Faccenna, C.: The effects of plate interface rheology on subduction kinematics and dynamics. Geophys. J. Int., 230, 796-812, 2022.	PDF
  	144	Puel, S., Khattatov, E., Villa U., Liu, D., Ghattas, O. and Becker, T. W.: A Mixed, unified forward/inverse framework for earthquake problems: Fault implementation and coseismic slip estimate. Geophys. J. Int., 230, 733-758, 2022.	PDF

• Undergrad and graduate (Ph.D.) student research opportunities

  The University of Texas at Austin hosts an exciting and diverse community of researchers at the Jackson School of Geoscience, which includes the UTIG and DGS units with which I am affiliated. At UT, we are colocated and collaborate with a number of others, including at the Texas Advanced Computing Center and the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences.

  We are always looking for motivated students with a keen interest and solid background in the Earth sciences, physics, engineering, or computer science. Please take a look at some of our recent publications to give you an idea of current projects, but I like to work with students who think and work independently and challenge and extend my expertise and interests.

  Please consider applying for our program should you be interested in pursuing a PhD in my research group, and see the JSG pages for admission procedures. The (important) Fellowship deadline is December 1 each year. If you think this could be a match, please do reach out by email.

Older news items

• 20 years of linking seismic topography and mantle convection (01/2020)

  Lapo Boschi, Steve Grand and I chat about the last 20 years of linking seismic tomography and global mantle dynamics as well interdisciplinary collaboration from our perspective, sponsored by the Modeling Collaboratory for Subduction RCN.

• AGU Union Session and Eos piece celebrating Humboldt's 250th birthday anniversary (12/2019)

  • A team of G3 editors chaired a fantastic Union session on Two Hundred Fifty Years of Alexander von Humboldt: Humboldtian Systems Science in the 21st Century at the 2019 AGU Fall meeting. You can still view the amazing talks on this
    • YouTube recording of the 250 years of Alexander von Humboldt Union session
  • Our Eos commentary (with beautiful illustrations thanks to Eos) is here:
    • Becker, T. W. and Faccenna, C. (2019): The scientist who connected it all. Eos, 100, doi:10.1029/2019EO132583.

• Study on Nile support by mantle convection published in Nature Geosciences (11/2019)

  • Faccenna, C., Glisovic, P., Forte, A., Becker, T. W., Garzanti, E., Sembroni, A. and Gvirtzman, C.: Role of dynamic topography in sustaining the Nile River over 30 million years. Nat. Geosc., 12, 1012-1017, 2019. (PDF)

• Colombia flat slab project funded (06/2019)

  • MUSICA project web site
  • Carnegie news release (06/2019)

• Modeling Collaboratory RCN funded (08/2018)

  And we were able to hire Gabe Lotto of Stanford as our program manager!

• JSG rankings in News & World Report (03/2018)

  The Jackson School of Geosciences did well in the latest U.S. News & World Report's ranking of "Best Graduate Schools":
  • No. 1 in Geology (tied with Penn State);
  • No. 7 in Earth Sciences (No. 3 among public universities); and
  • No. 7 in Geophysics and Seismology (No. 2 among public universities).

• Field trip to Kenya rift valley (02/2018)

  A field trip run by University of Potsdam (Manfred Strecker) and Universita di Roma TRE to study paleoclimate and tectonics of the Kenya rift.

• New UTIG broadband seismometer pool coming together (06/2017)

  @robporritt handling the first new seismometer sensor shipment @UTGeophysics, let's get them hooked up! Yay! pic.twitter.com/DrCAhJU0Iq

  — Thorsten Becker (@thwbecker) June 30, 2017

• Study on primordial reservoirs carried by hottest plumes published in Nature (02/2017)

  • Jackson, M. G., Konter, J. G., and Becker, T. W.: Primordial helium entrained by the hottest mantle plumes. Nature, doi:10.1038/nature21023, 2017. (PDF)

• Adam Holt wins an Outstanding Presentation Award at the 2016 JpGU Meeting (07/2016)

  • Holt, A. F., Royden, L., Becker, T. W., and Faccenna, C.: The dynamics of double slab subduction from numerical and semi-analytic models. SIT11-12. Japan Geoscience Union Meeting, 2016.

• Thorsten instructor at 2016 CIDER program (07/2016)

  • Geodynamics III lecture on Integrating Geophysical Observations into Global Mantle Flow models (doi: 10.13140/RG.2.1.1082.5209, 2016. (PDF, movie)
    
    

• Adam Holt defends PhD thesis (05/2016)

  
  

• Universal quake statistics paper published in Scientific Reports (11/2015)

  • Uhl, J. T. et al.: Universal quake statistics: From compressed nanocrystals to earthquakes. Sci. Rep., 5, 16493, doi: 10.1038/srep16493, 2015. (PDF)

• Study on mantle convection cause of intraplate seismicity published in Nature (08/2015)

  • Becker, T. W., Lowry, A. R., Faccenna, C., Schmandt, B., Borsa, A., and Yu, C. (2015): Western U.S. intermountain seismicity caused by qchanges in upper mantle flow. Nature, 524, 458-461. (PDF)

• Thorsten elected AGU fellow (07/2015)

  
  

• Adam wins Outstanding Student Poster at EGU (05/2015)

  Adam Holt has won the European Geosciences Union's Outstanding Student Poster (OSP) Award for Tectonophysics and Geodynamics in 2015 for his presentation
  • Overriding plate thickness control on subducting slab curvature by Adam Holt et al., EGU2015-8011
  at the 2015 EGU General Assembly in Vienna. The related research is now published in:
  • Holt, A. F., Buffett, B. A., and Becker, T. W.: Overriding plate thickness control on subducting plate curvature. Geophys. Res. Lett., 42, doi:10.1002/2015GL063834, 2015. (PDF)

• Double subduction study published (05/2015)

  We show that two subduction zones, active at the same time, may explain the anomalously fast motion of the Indian plate in the past.
  • Jagoutz, O., Royden, L., Holt, A. F., and Becker, T. W.: Anomalously fast convergence between India and Eurasia caused by double subduction. Nature Geosc., 8, 475-479, 2015. (PDF)
  • News and View piece by Billen (2015)

• Updated PBO GPS velocity solution plots (12/2014)

  PBO/EarthScope provides crustal GPS velocities which are now plotted from 2006 - 2014 in a consistent reference frame. See the visuals page.
  
• Presentation on Topography in the Mediterranean mobile belt (09/2014)
  
  
  Keynote at the TopoEurope meeting in Barcelona, September 2014, summarizing some of the findings from:
  • Faccenna, C., Becker, T. W., Miller, M. S., Serpelloni, E., Willett, S. D.: Isostasy, dynamic topography, and the elevation of the Apennines of Italy. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 407, 163-174, 2014. (PDF)
  • Miller, M. S. and Becker, T. W.: Reactivated lithospheric-scale discontinuities localize dynamic uplift of the Moroccan Atlas Mountains. Geology, 42, 35-38, 2014. (PDF)
  • Faccenna, C., Becker, T. W., Auer, L., Billi, A., Boschi, L., Brun, J.-P., Capitanio, F. A., Funiciello, F., Horvath, F., Jolivet, L., Piromallo, C., Royden, L., Rossetti, F., and Serpelloni, E.: Mantle dynamics in the Mediterranean. Rev. Geophys., 52, doi:10.1002/2013RG000444, 283--332, 2014. (PDF)

• Science paper by Schmandt et al. on dehydration melting below 660 published (06/2014)

  We show how receiver functions imaging, laboratory experiments, and geodynamical modeling can be combined to show that there is likely a zone of downwelling underneath the western US which induced melting underneath a high volatile content transition zone. (PDF).
  Also see popular news coverage on: Al Jazeera America, FAZ, The Washington Post, Forbes, New York Times, PBS News Hour, Spektrum, NBC, TIME, USA Today, KQED Science (NPR), Daily Mail, The Independent, The Huffington Post, Spiegel Online, Bild der Wissenschaft, The Weather Channel (with video), New Scientist, and elsewhere.

• Banda Arc project Fieldwork blog (03/2014)

  Banda Arc project lead post-doc Leland O'Driscoll has started reporting from field work in East Timor at bandaarc.blogspot.com, check it out!

• Work on how the Atlas mountains are formed published in Geology (11/2013)

  • Miller, M. S. and Becker, T. W.: Reactivated lithospheric-scale discontinuities localize dynamic uplift of the Moroccan Atlas Mountains. Geology, 42, 35-38, 2014. (PDF)
  • Nature Geoscience highlight by Whitchuch
  • USC News release

• Thorsten wins Bessel award of the Humboldt Foundation (11/2013)

  

• Thomas graduates with PhD (06/2013)

  Congrats, Thomas!

• Field trip to the Menderes Massif, Turkey (03/2013)

• Tour of LACMA Rocks (09/2012)

  • Michael Heizer: Actual Size Gallery Walkthrough at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art

• Nature Geoscience study on slab-keel interactions published (08/2012)

  • Miller, M. S. and Becker, T. W.: Mantle flow deflected by interactions between subducted slabs and cratonic keels. Nature Geosc., doi:10.1038/ngeo1553, 2012. (PDF)
  • USC news release (covered by PhysOrg, EurekaAlert, TerraDaily, Science Daily, etc.). Reporting on Huffington Post, MSNBC, Discovery News, International Business Times, Yahoo news.

• PICASSO project seismic station survice run (05/2012)

• Ethiopia field trip (03/2012)

• USC Geodynamics Earth Science Computing Environment released (03/2012)

• Geodesy field work in Baja California (02/2012)

• Lisa Alpert passes her PhD defense (01/2012)

• Discover magazine features mantle circulation visualization (08/2011)

• G-Cubed 2010 impact factor up to 3.4, now ranking 10th out of all Geochemistry/Geophysics journals (06/2011)

  As of the 2011 ISI report, AGU's Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (G3) impact factor went up to 3.368 for 2010, from 2.626 in 2009. G3 is now ranked #10, up from #13, out of 77 Geochemistry and Geophysics journals.

• Thomas wins a Best Student Presentation Award at SSA 2011 (05/2011)

  USC Geodynamics grad student Thomas Goebel won a Best student presentation award, at the Annual Meeting of the Seismological Society of America, Memphis, TN, in April 2011 on his poster on
  
  
  • Goebel, T. H. W., Becker, T. W., Schorlemmer, D., Stanchits, S. Rybacki, E., Dresen.G: Connecting Acoustic Emission Event Locations, Aftershock Density and b-values before and after Stick-Slips to Changes in Topography of Rough Fracture Surfaces during Frictional Sliding Experiments. Meeting of the Seismological Society of America Abtsract, Memphis TN, 2011.
  Also see
  • Goebel, T. H. W., Becker, T. W., Schorlemmer, D., Stanchits, S., Sammis, C., Rybacki, E., and Dresen, G.: Identifying fault heterogeneity through mapping spatial anomalies in acoustic emission statistics. J. Geophys. Res., 117, B03310, doi:10.1029/2011JB008763, 2012. (PDF)

• PICASSO project seismic station survice run (05/2011)

• Science perspective on Stadler et al. (2010) published (08/2010)

  • Becker, T. W.: Fine-Scale Modeling of Global Plate Tectonics. Science, 29, 1020 - 1021, 2010. (PDF) News coverage on MSNBS

• USC ranked 23rd in US (News and World Report, 08/2010)

  USC was ranked as the 23rd best university overall in the US in 2010, ahead of UCLA (25th), and just behind UC Berkeley (22nd). The USC Geophysics PhD program was ranked 9th earlier (04/2010).

• Small-scale convection study published in Nature (06/2010)

  Results on the role of small-scale mantle convection on microplate motions and dynamic topography in the Mediterranean were published in Nature. This project is a long-standing collaboration with Claudio Faccenna of Roma TRE. See
  • Faccenna and Becker: Shaping mobile belts by small-scale convection. Nature, 465, 2010. (PDF)
  • the corresponding News and Views article by Wortel and Govers
  • Reporting in Christian Science Monitor, Pour La Science (in French), Spiegel Online, Focus Online, and Bild der Wissenschaft (last three in German)
  • USC News
  • Terra Daily, got a Cool on FARK, Futurity, Science Daily, LiveScience, PhysOrg, ScienceCodex, Eureka Science News, Lab Spaces, E Science News, News Blaze, Sify News, ABC Espana, New Kerala, Science Centric, Thai Indian, News Track India, One India, Mysterium at Blogosfere.

• San Andreas Fault Zone study hits top spot in G-Cubed downloads (07/2010)

  • Platt, J. P. and Becker, T. W.: Where is the real transform boundary in California? Geochem., Geophys., Geosys., 11(Q06013), doi:10.1029/2010GC003060, 2010. (PDF)
  
  hits the top weekly download spot at G-Cubed (G-Cubed "cover" from 07/2010).

• Numerical Geodynamics lecture notes online (06/2010)

  A fully contained set of lecture notes and accompanying Matlab exercises on Numerical Geodynamics are now online.
  • Becker, T. W. and Kaus, B. J. P.: Numerical Geodynamics. An introduction to computational methods with focus on solid Earth applications of continuum mechanics. Lecture notes (162 pages). University of Southern California, Los Angeles, 2010.
  • Updated:: Becker, T. W. and Kaus, B. J. P (2016): Numerical Modeling of Earth Systems: An introduction to computational methods with focus on solid Earth applications of continuum mechanics, University of Southern California, v. 1.2, 2016.(PDF)

• USC High performance computing center 5th in US (06/2010)

  USC's Linux cluster supercomputing facility HPCC has been ranked 5th in the US in an academic setting in the most recent TOP500 benchmark exercise.

• USC Geophysics ranked 9th in US News and World Report (04/2010)

  USC's Geophysics graduate program has been ranked ninth in the US in the 2010 version of the US News and World Report, right after Harvard and Princeton, and before the University of Washington.

• Michael Kaplan awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (04/2010)

  USC Geodyanmics Grad student Michael Kaplan was awarded a prestiguous National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship on April 6, 2010. Congrats Mike!

• USC undergrad paper hits top spot in G-Cubed downloads (08/2009)

  Former USC Earth science undergrad Brad Foley's paper
  
  
  • Foley, B. and Becker, T. W.: Generation of plate-like behavior and mantle heterogeneity from a spherical, visco-plastic convection model. Geochem., Geophys., Geosys., 10, Q08001, doi:10.1029/2009GC002378, 2009. (PDF)
  
  hits the top weekly download spot at G-Cubed and gets picked as highlighted image in August 2009 (G-Cubed "cover" from 08/2009). Brad is now a PhD student at Yale University.

• New seafloor age and spherical harmonics animations (05/2008)

• Becker selected as the 2008 Gauss Lecturer of the German Geophysical Society (04/2008)

• First release of the Solid Earth Teaching and Research Environment (03/2008)

• GEOL599 class project results published in PNAS (08/2007)

  USC graduate student Sean Loyd, faculty Frank Corsetti, and myself were among the authors of a study on Cenozoic heat flux and plate tectonics that got published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Read the PNAS paper, or news releases by UPI and USC.

• Becker awarded NSF CAREER grant (01/2007)