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Teaching

I regularly teach the following courses in geology and geophysics:

• GEOL 201 Physical Geology
• GEOL 241 Physical Geology Laboratory
• GEOL 206 Geologic Excursions
• GEOL 420 Field Geophysics
• PHYS 410 Physics of Solid Earth

In Spring 2026 I will teach GEOL 305 Seismology and Earth Structure for the last time. This course is ending because starting in Fall 2026 Cal Poly is moving to the semester system and there is simply not as many opportunities to teach different courses.

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Cal Poly Geology

Cal Poly offers a complete course of study in geology via the Geology Concentration within the Environmental Earth and Soil Science B.S. degree program.

The Geology Concentration satisfies the educational requirements needed for the Professional Geologist license in California. Please see the Cal Poly Geology website for much more detailed information.

The Geology Concentration will also allow you to pursue graduate studies in geology and most any other area of the earth sciences.

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Geophysical Research at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo

I work in and supervise student research and senior projects in the areas of near-surface geophysics (hydrogeology) and global seismology. If you are a student and want to discuss opportunities in these areas feel free to send me an email or stop by my office (Baker Science Room 520) sometime.

Near-surface Geophysics & Hydrogeology

I primarily use electrical resistivity tomography to image near-surface geologic structures such as faults, folds, and stratigraphy; the typical application to infer aquifer structure and groundwater resources. In addition, other methods include induced polarization (IP) and self potential (SP), and seismic refraction tomography (SRT).

Below is a two-dimensional electrical resistivity tomography (2D ERT) image collected along the Rinconada Fault in Paso Robles, CA. The southwest side (on right) is shale (exposed at surface) and the northeast side is made up of decomposed granite from the Salinian Block at the surface, which is presumably fractured at depth. Here we are trying to evaluate whether the fractured granite could act as an aquifer for the landowner.

Data was collected by the Fall 2022 Applied Geophysics class using the mighty SuperStingR8 resistivity meter and 56 electrodes at six-meter spacing.

Global Seismology

Global seismology analyzes earthquake waves to infer/constrain the earth’s deep interior structure and state.

Ultra-low Velocity Zones (ULVZ) at the Core-mantle Boundary

Currently students have been exploring ultra-low velocity zones (ULVZ) at earth’s core-mantle boundary at 2,900 km depth using PcP and ScP seismic phases.

The image below shows a model fit (red: data, blue: synthetic) of ultra-low velocity zone structure using PcP phase arrivals recorded at a high density array.

The PcP phase arrival shows an ultra-low velocity zone structure at the core-mantle boundary. The best fitting one-dimensional ULVZ model has a thickness of 6.5 km and S-wave velocity decrement of 27.5%.

Interestingly, no density increase or P-wave velocity decrement is needed; in fact, increasing the density and/or decreasing P-wave velocity immediately begins to degrade model fit (with the important caveat that these are only one-dimensional models!).

Core-rigidity Zones

Students are also modeling ScP waves for anomalous structure at the core-mantle boundary. The image below shows a stack (linear and phase-weighted) of P-waves and ScP-waves. The ScP response is suggestive of a core-rigidity zone (CRZ) structure (Rost and Revenaugh 2001), or → direct link to PDF.

Some observations of a CRZ structure were also detected with ultra-low velocity zone (ULVZ) observations (Rost and Revenaugh 2003) → freely downloadable from Journal of Geophysical Research.

The above two references are the only previous CRZ observations in the literature I am aware of.

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Photo Albums

Course (and maybe eventually field research) photo albums.

Applied Geophysics (GEOL 420)

Seismology & Earth Structure (GEOL 305)

Physical Geology Laboratory (GEOL 241)

Geologic Excursions (GEOL 206)

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