Back to Young UTIG Researchers Talks

By Lisa Watson.

Abstract:
Over the 2003 spring semester, I have worked on two UTIG research projects that have both involved learning how to input, georeference, and manipulate large amounts of geologic and geophysical data in a GIS system.

First, I have compiled fault data from the active margins of the Caribbean plate into a GIS data base that will be displayed by Paul Mann at the annual meeting of the Seismological Society of America in San Juan, Puerto Rico (April 30-May 2, 2003). This map also includes maps of epicenters, earthquake focal mechanisms, and GPS vectors. These data can be displayed on several different basemaps including Geosat gravity and topography/bathymetry. The SSA presentation is intended to show seismologists that a large amount of data is available in an accessible format for studies of seismic hazard. In this talk I will show examples of the various components of the map.

Second, I am starting a UT geology senior thesis study on the tectonic geomorphology of the Papuan Peninsula of eastern Papua New Guinea. For this study, I have compiled a GIS database of Papua New Guinea that includes topography/bathymetry, geologic map, faults, earthquakes, and the locations, radiocarbon ages, and calculated uplift rates of Holocene coral samples collected by Paul Mann and Fred Taylor in the summer of 2002. During the fall of 2002, I prepared the coral samples for radiocarbon dating. For my UT senior thesis study, I am using these data to conduct a geomorphological study of the uplift of the peninsula along the Owen Stanley-Gwoira fault zone, the main plate boundary fault separating the Australian and Woodlark plates on the 500-km-long and 4-km-high Papuan Peninsula. GPS data from Tregoning et al. (JGR, 1998) predicts that this plate boundary fault is mainly a normal fault at the eastern end of the peninsula near the Woodlark basin (opening rate: 12 mm/yr) but progressively changes character to a left-lateral strike-slip fault at the western end of the peninsula (slip rate: 10 mm/yr).

In this talk I will display serial topographic profiles across the fault to illustrate changes in the geomorphic character consistent with strike-slip faulting at one and normal faulting at the other and show a major tilt of the land surface of the peninsula that has occurred as a result of normal motion on the eastern part of the fault. I will also use topography to illustrate active geomorphic features formed as a response to recent normal faulting in the eastern area of the fault near Goodenough Bay where Holocene corals collected in 2002 document uplift rates as rapid as 3.4 mm/yr.