• Print
  • Email
 

Margaret Rusmore


Professor
Office: HSC 216
Phone: 323-259-2565
Email: rusmore@oxy.edu

Teaching

I regularly teach Physical Geology, Introduction to Field Methods; Structural Geology and Advanced Mapping, and Senior Seminar.  (See courses )  I have also enjoyed developing and teaching the California Environment Semester , a team-taught, four-course semester focusing on the geology, biology, GIS/Geography of California, combined with a writing seminar.   

Research

I am especially interested in the formation and evolution of mountain belts from the perspective of Structural Geology and Tectonics.  Topics I have investigated range from  the accretion of terranes to the exhumation and uplift of heavily glaciated mountains. Currently I am studying the evolution of the Late Mesozoic to early Tertiary continental arc in British Columbia as part of the NSF Continental Dynamics Project “Batholith: Generation and Evolution of Crust in Continental Magmatic Arcs”  

 

Along with structure and tectonics, I am keenly interested in how GIS can shape new questions and directions in structure and tectonics – from data collection and distribution to topographic and geologic analysis.  All my field data is collected in GIS, and students in my advanced courses learn to use this technology.

 

Students are involved in many aspects of my research  and commonly travel with me to British Columbia for field work. Others tackle projects in the lab or in the Mojave.  Titles of Senior theses I recently supervised are:

  • Evolution of the Coast Mountains, Bella Coola, British Columbia from Fission Track Analyses of Apatite by Sean Bowen (co-supervised with Ann Blythe)
  • Mapping and Structural Geology of the Snake Creek Anticline: 1.5 Ga
  • Deformation in the Eastern Fold Belt of the Mount Isa Inlier, Queensland, Australia by Regan Austin
  • Analysis of the Basal Contact,  Red Rock Canyon State Park by Allyson Buller
  • The Effect of Plate Boundary Type on Mountain Topography: A Case Study from the Coast Mountains, British Columbia (Honors Thesis) by Shane Gillispie
  • Al-in-Hornblende Geobarometry Plutons:  An Analysis of Exhumation in the Coast Plutonic Complex Of British Columbia by Kerri Fjeld

Selected Publications 

Rusmore, M. E., S. W. Bogue, K. Dodson, K. A. Farley, and G. J. Woodsworth (2010), Deformation of continental crust along a transform boundary, Coast Mountains, British Columbia, Tectonics, 29, TC4007, doi:10.1029/2009TC002502.

Gehrels, G., M. Rusmore, G. Woodsworth, M. Crawford, C. Andronicos, L. Hollister, J. Patchett, M. Ducea, R. Butler, K. Klepeis, C. Davidson, R. Friedman, J. Haggart, B. Mahoney, W. Crawford, D. Pearson, and J. Girardi (2009), U-Th-Pb Geochronology of the Coast Mountains Batholith in North-Coastal British Columbia: Constraints on Age and Tectonic Evolution 10.1130/B26404.1, Geological Society of America Bulletin, 121, 1341-1361.

Ehlers, T.A., Farley, K.A., Rusmore, M.E., and Woodsworth, G.J., 2006, Apatite (U-Th)/He signal of large-magnitude accelerated glacial erosion, southwest British Columbia: Geology, v. 34, p. 765-768.

Rusmore, M.E., Woodsworth, G.J., and Gehrels, G.E., 2005, Two-stage exhumation of midcrustal arc rocks, Coast Mountains, British Columbia: Tectonics, v. 24, doi: 10.1029/2004TC0001750.

Shuster, D.L., Ehlers, T.A., Rusmore, M.E., and Farley, K.A., 2005, Rapid Glacial Erosion at 1.8 Ma Revealed by 4 He/ 3 He Thermochronology: Science, v. 310, p. 1668-1670.

Rusmore, M.E., Gehrels, G., and Woodsworth, G.J., 2001, Southern  continuation of the Coast shear zone and Paleocene strain partitioning in British Columbia-southeast Alaska: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 113, p. 961-975.

Farley, K.A., Rusmore, M.E., and Bogue, S.W., 2001, Exhumation and Uplift History of the Central Coast Mountains, British Columbia, from Apatite (U-Th)/He Thermochronometry.: Geology, v. 29, p. 99-102.