Tectonic Processes
Our research in Tectonics aims at unraveling the relationships between earthquakes and aseismic fault slip, fault properties, crustal deformation and landscape evolution. Faculty in this area use a broad range of techniques to document active deformation (seismology, GPS geodesy, remote sensing, morphotectonics), and the structure and long term deformation history of the crust (structural geology, seismic imaging, thermochonology, metamorphic petrology). They also resort to numerical modeling of both short term and longer term geodynamic processes. Tectonics at Caltech is closely linked to geophysics, seismology and geodynamic modeling in particular.