Desmond Patterson

Seminar Topic: Does dust from space cause Ice Ages?

Our speaker this week is Des Patterson who comes to us from down under. Des is currently in the business of constructing U-Th/He thermochronology labs and travels the world trying to keep up with the high demand for new facilities. He also has a strong academic background with a PhD from Australian National University and a Post-doc at Cal Tech. U-Th/He thermochronology is becoming highly utilized as it has applications in the temperature range from about 60°C to >200°C depending upon the mineral of choice. The low temperature range couples nicely with apatite fission track analyses and provides a time element for neotectonic studies such as recent mountain building and river incision amongst many others.

Des is primarily in town to discuss the details for obtaining a new U-Th/He facility at NM Tech. Myself and Shari Kelley are planning on a proposal to build a new facility that hopefully will integrate with many of the programs already established here at Tech. Des's talk will be a good opportunity to get a feel for what types of projects can be addressed with U-Th/He geo and thermochronology.

I have also scheduled the geoscience conference room for 11:00 am on Friday. At this time Des is planning on a more technically informative presentation for anyone interested. As U-Th/He studies become more prevalent in the literature this talk may be useful to you as it could provide a quick basis for better understanding what the method is all about. I hope you will join us.