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Professor
He describes himself as an earth scientist, curious about how the earth “works” and how it has evolved to its present state. “I am trying to understand the principles that shape melting in the earth’s mantle, and how that translates into how and where melting happens,” Phipps Morgan says. “What makes it a challenge is that we need to at the same time model the deeper mantle flow linked to surface plate tectonics in order to properly study the melting process itself.” The research includes numerical modeling of deformation and melting below the surface of the earth at various targets of opportunity such as mid-ocean ridges, hotspots such as Hawaii, and subduction zones like in Central America. It also includes laboratory tank experiments that attempt to simulate aspects of mantle flow and subduction using common household fluids like sugar syrup. These tabletop experiments provide invaluable opportunities to test the codes and approaches used to model mantle flow, as well as providing striking insights into the processes of the flow of a buoyant and strongly temperature-dependent viscous fluid. As a side project, Phipps Morgan has examined the causes of mass-extinctions, in particular the issue that these periods in the earth’s history appear to be associated with both extremely rare continental lava floods (basalts) and continental rifting, and even rarer impact signals presumed to derive from large meteors pummeling the planet. “Mantle-plume-linked gas explosions from 80 miles deep within the oldest and strongest continents may have the potential to create the same type of geological traces as meteor impacts,” he says. “I first began to study the earth by studying mid-ocean ridges,” says Phipps Morgan. As a summer undergraduate research experience he developed a program to model the patterns of marine magnetic anomalies produced by along-strike propagation of a mid-ocean ridge. This experience hooked him on the creative joys of science, and motivated his future college learning. While in graduate school, participating in a research cruise also got him hooked on field study as a means of learning more about our planet. Phipps Morgan earned a Ph.D. in geophysics from Brown University. He joined the Cornell faculty in 2004 after serving as director of the geodynamics division at GEOMAR Research Center in Kiel, Germany, and prior stints working at MIT and Scripps. He teaches a class in geodynamics and an introduction to geology for engineers. Another course offering compares the effects of explosive volcanism and impact cratering, with a week-long field excursion to see firsthand examples of both. Read more faculty profiles: |
Delving deep into the earth’s interior is the primary objective of Jason Phipps Morgan’s research efforts. The approaches used involve a combination of thermodynamic and continuum mechanics to study mantle flow and volcanism. 