PhD. Candidate Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., present. "Timescales of magmatic processes in layered intrusions: insights from high-precision U-Pb geochronology, Hf isotopes, and trace elements of zircon" Advisor: Dr. James Scoates.
My main interests revolves around the application of high-precision U-Pb geochronology to large layered intrusions. Layered intrusions are importnt to geoscientists as they represent natural laboratories to study magmatic processes in the crust and are host to major platinum-group-element (PGE) deposits. My main focus is on two layered intrusions, the Stillwater Complex in Montana and the Bushveld Complex in South Africa. These two layered intrusions are considered to have formed under "open-system" conditions, which means that they formed by multiple injections of magma into the magma chamber. However, little dating has been done on the entire stratigraphy of the Bushveld or Stillwater Complexes and the total duration of magmatism as well as absolute timing of injections is poorly understood. With new zircon pre-treatment techniques (i.e. chemical abrasion (Mattinson, 2005)), reduction of Pb-blanks, the development of multi-element isotopic tracers, and improvements in instrumental characterization has resulted in more precise ages (uncertainty <0.1% on an individual analysis). This increase in precision now allows for the recognition of distinct magma pulses at the timescale aimed at sequencing Earth history.
B.Sc. Honours Geological Sciences, University of British Columbia (2009).