Science & Technology

Grad Student Receives ExxonMobil Geoscience Grant

As if wildfires and mudslides weren’t causing enough turmoil in California, the threat of a giant temblor constantly looms in the minds of emergency planners and residents. With funding from a research grant, Utah State University graduate student David Forand will examine locations along major strike-slip zones in the San Andreas, Cleghorn and Clark faults in southern California.

“With the continuously growing population and the potential for large magnitude earthquakes, the hazards earthquakes pose for this region make studying damage zones vital to the assessment of building codes and public safety,” says Forand, who is conducting his research with faculty mentors Jim Evans and Susanne Janecke in USU’s Geology Department.
 
Forand received a $5,000 award from ExxonMobil Corporation’s 2008 Geoscience Grant Program to fund his project, which forms the basis of his master’s thesis.
 
“The focus of the project is to examine damage zones and their associated structures that have developed in crystalline rock,” he says. “We’ll study drilled core from the Cajon Pass Deep Drill Hole Project and map areas along the Clark fault.”
 
Key questions of Forand’s research include how deformation – that is, changes in the volume and shape of a body of rock – differs in crystalline rock along major strike-slip faults depending on the scale of observation. He’ll also examine how deformation varies vertically and horizontally in large strike-slip faults.
 
For now, Forand is completing a three-month summer internship with Anadarko Petroleum Corporation in Houston. The master’s student is evaluating the geology of a potential petroleum reservoir Anadarko is considering for drilling.
 
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Contact: David Forand [dforand@gmail.com]
Writer: Mary-Ann Muffoletto [maryann.muffoletto@usu.edu], 435-797-3517
USU grad student David Forand

After completing a summer internship with Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, geology grad student David Forand will embark on a study of fault zones in southern California. He received an ExxonMobil Geoscience Grant to fund his research.

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