Truly honored to receive the Augustus Love Medal of EGU. Not possible
without all the help, support, mentoring, and collaboration with
friends and colleagues over the years. Great to see at least a few of
the team in person at EGU in Vienna!
Liu, C., Becker, T. W., Wu, M., Han, S., and Ritzwoller, M. H.:
Seismic azimuthal anisotropy within the Juan de Fuca - Gorda plate
system.
Geophys. Res. Lett., doi:10.1029/2024GL111835, 2024.
Liu, D., Puel, S., Becker, T. W., and Moresi, L. N.: Analytical and numerical
models of viscous anisotropy: A toolset to constrain the role of
mechanical anisotropy for regional tectonics and fault loading.
Geophys. J. Int., 239, 950-963, 2024.
We are always looking for motivated students with a keen interest
in how the solid Earth works. Background are typically from the
Earth sciences, physics, engineering, or computer science. Please
take a look at some of our recent
publications and projects such as the
Megathrust Modeling
Framework to give you an idea of current projects, but I like to
try to support students who 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. A few comments:
There are two deadlines. For full consideration for
Fellowships, the relevant deadline is the earlier one, December
1 each year.
The application form will ask about what support you want to be
considered for. Select all. If admitted, we will cover tuition and a
salary for five years. The latter will come from a mix of teaching
assistantships, research assistantships, and possibly fellowships.
If you think this could be a match, please
do reach out by email so that we can explore
further, ideally a few months before the deadline.
Hua, J., Fischer, K., Becker, T.W., Gazel, E. and Hirth, G.:
Asthenospheric low-velocity zone consistent with globally prevalent
partial melting. Nature Geosc., doi:10.1038/s41561-022-01116-9, 2023.
(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.
Thanks to the nominators, mentors, colleagues and friends!
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.
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
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)
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)
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.
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)
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)
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)
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)
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).
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)
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)
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)
Becker, T. W.: Fine-Scale Modeling of Global Plate
Tectonics. Science, 29, 1020 - 1021,
2010. (PDF)
News
coverage on MSNBS
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
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)
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.
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.
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