“I study rocks that have been folded, faulted, crumpled up, and otherwise deformed to understand the forces that create mountain ranges and shape Earth’s landscapes.”
Chelsea Mackaman-Lofland
Assistant Professor
Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences
As an expert in structural geology and tectonics, my research combines a variety of field, analytical, and numerical modeling-based approaches. I reconstruct the 3D geometry and deformation history of rocks, and sometimes the depositional record preserved in sedimentary basins, to explore the relationships among crustal deformation, topographic evolution, and deep Earth dynamics.
Understanding these relationships remains an outstanding challenge in my field and impacts everyone on our planet, because they drive complex interactions with other Earth systems—including climate, water, and life—and influence the distribution of natural hazards and resources.
Why I Do What I Do
I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, surrounded by mountains, volcanoes, and active tectonics. This environment had a huge impact on my early perception, and curiosity, about the natural world. For example, I have these transformative childhood memories of flying into the Seattle airport and seeing this giant volcano, Mt. Rainier, right outside of the plane window, and of actually “surfing” the surface waves from the 2001 Nisqually earthquake, which had a magnitude of 6.8.
Experiences like these inspired me to pursue Earth science in college and graduate school, and I’m thrilled to have landed as an assistant professor here in eastern Tennessee, where the regional geology so closely matches my research interests.
Currently Working On
In addition to familiarizing myself with the spectacular Earth history recorded in our Appalachian backyard, I’ve been excited about several projects in other mountain ranges.
The first, in the actively growing Andes Mountains, examines potential connections (or the lack thereof) among faults that have generated historically devastating earthquakes in western Argentina, with seismic hazard implications for the major cities of San Juan and Mendoza.
The second, in the ancient Rocky Mountains of the western US and Canada, seeks to understand why Earth’s surface continued to rise after the termination of active mountain building and major faulting.
The third explores the extent to which the construction, and later collapse, of mountain ranges in western Turkey may have influenced patterns of faunal (including early hominid) dispersion out of Africa and into Eurasia over the past 15 million to 20 million years.