Simon Klemperer

Biography

Professor of Geophysics and leader of the "Crustal" research group that studies structure, tectonics, deformation, growth and composition of the continental lithosphere, using active and passive seismology. Director of the undergraduate program in Geophysics, and co-Director of the School of Earth Sciences Summer Undergraduate Research Program.

Research Interest

I study the growth, tectonic evolution, and deformation of the continents (see my Google Scholar profile). My research group undertakes field experiments in exemplary areas such as, currently, the Tibet plateau (formed by collision between Indian and Asia - we're working on the northern, Kunlun, and the southern, Himalayan, boundaries of the Plateau); the actively extending Basin-&-Range province of western North America (we are working on the Ruby Range Metamorphic Core Complex in Nevada, and the leaky transform beneath the Salton Trough in southernmost California); and in recent years the Ethiopian rift valley (where the African continent is being pulled apart) and the Mariana island chain (where new crust is forming beneath active volcanoes). We create controlled seismic sources—explosions—to drive sound waves into the Earth, and from our recordings of reflected waves at distant receivers, we form images of the deep structure and measure the physical properties of the continents. We also use the transmitted sound waves from distant earthquakes, the temporal fluctuations of natural electrical fields in the Earth, and small spatial variations of Earth's gravitational and magnetic fields for the same purposes. We maintain an ultra-low frequency electromagnetic (ULFEM) network of stations on the San Andreas fault system in the San Francisco Bay Area in an attempt to learn whether or not ULFEM earthquake precursors exist.