Posted July 9, 2009

The Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Saskatchewan invites exceptional, self-motivated, hard-working students to join its new Tectonics and Geodynamics Research Group as M.Sc. students. There are two research projects available currently to begin in January 2010:

The evolution of the Tama Kosi window
The Tama Kosi is a large north-south trending river located ~50 km west of the Everest-Lhotse-Nuptse massif in east central Nepal. The exhumed high-grade mid-crustal rocks exposed along the river and its environ have been interpreted to outline a large structural window. The goal of this project is to map, in detail, the extent of this window and use the data collected in the field, along with laboratory analyses such as ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar and U/Th/He thermochronology, microstructural analyses, and metamorphic pressure-temperature estimation to elucidate its evolution. This project will allow us to distinguish between whether the Tama Kosi window is a structural window, as previously interpreted, or is an erosional window created through river incision. Determining the nature of the Tama Kosi window will provide important geologic clues to the under-studied post-Miocene evolution of the Himalayan front in central Nepal.

Kinematics of the Annapurna Himalaya
The Annapurna massif is located in west central Nepal, ~ 200 km west of Kathmandu. The Modi Khola, which drains the centre of the massif to the south, provides geologists with exceptional access to the Greater Himalayan sequence; the exhumed high-grade mid-crustal core of the Himalayan-Tibetan orogen. The aim of this project is to build on prior work in the area to construct a detailed kinematic history of the Greater Himalayan sequence in this portion of the orogen through detailed mapping of geologic units and structures in the field and ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar thermochronology, microprobe-based metamorphic pressure-temperature estimates, and microstructural analyses (quartz lattice preferred orientations and vorticity) on specimens in the laboratory. The results of this project will provide critical constraints on the kinematics of the Greater Himalayan sequence and act as a test of the channel flow hypothesis (i.e. a model in which Greater Himalayan sequence comprises a low viscosity mid-crustal layer that was extruded laterally out from beneath the Tibetan plateau due to a large horizontal lithostatic pressure gradient), which has been used to explain the tectonics of not only the Himalayan but many older large, hot orogens around the world.

If you are interested in either of these projects please contact Dr. Kyle Larson (email: kyle.larson@usask.ca). For information on graduate studies at the University of Saskatchewan please visit: http://www.usask.ca/cgsr/, and for the Department of Geological Sciences please visit: http://artsandscience.usask.ca/geology/.