KENDRA E. MURRAY
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  • Home
  • Research
    • Student Opportunities
  • Teaching
  • CV
  • People
  • Contact

Research

I am a geochemist interested in the processes that drive crustal evolution, mountain building, and landscape change.

​My group tackles research questions using Thermochronology and Igneous Petrology.
​We also investigate circumstances in which these two disciplines overlap.

Thermochronology

​Low-temperature thermochronology (T ≈ 40–300 ˚C) is my primary research tool because it is applicable to a wide range of interesting problems in the Earth sciences.
in plain language
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​New Project! Deep-time Thermochronology in the Northern Rockies. Dave Pearson (ISU), Devon Orme (Montana State) and I are actively recruiting graduate students to work on this project. See Student Opportunities and this advertisement.

Check out my talk to the Geologists of Jackson Hole: Probing the Ancient History of the Northern Rockies.
Other thermochronology projects, past and present:
Thermochron Record of LIP Eruptions
thermal history modeling
He age complexities: Grain Boundary Phases
monazite (U-Th)/He method development
thermochron record of wildfire
colorado plateau thermochron
magmatism and thermochron

Igneous Petrology

My current research investigates the petrogenesis of the young olivine tholeiites erupted on the Eastern Snake River Plain. These basalts also host the Snake River Plain Aquifer, and this active volcanic field presents volcanic hazards to the Idaho National Lab.

I'm working with Dr. Xiaofei Pu to apply olivine-melt thermometers and hygrometers in this region.
olivine compositional analysis
olivine-melt thermometry

Past projects

sedimentary thoroughfare and connections in the Antarctic
evolution of the central Andean orogen
Keck Nova Scotia: Evolution of a Continental Margin

ISU Geosciences

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