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Dr. Caleb Holyoke, associate professor in the Department of Geosciences, received a three-year grant of $359,704 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to perform an integrated field and experimental study investigating how water loss may strengthen the Earth's lower crust and lead to earthquakes. His research is titled “Collaborative Research: Roles of lithology and water on deep continental crustal rheology from a natural setting and laboratory experiments."

This collaborative study with Dr. Kevin Mahan of the University of Colorado, Boulder, will provide new insight on how water contents in minerals can affect their strength and affect the processes that allow rocks to deform in the Earth’s lower crust. Students from The University of Akron and the University of Colorado will perform experiments in the high-pressure rock mechanics laboratory Holyoke developed in the Department of Geosciences. Students from both schools will also perform field work in northern Saskatchewan to investigate exhumed one-billion-year-old lower crustal rocks that contain evidence of seismic events that occurred 28 km below the Earth’s surface.

The graduate and undergraduate students working on this project will also gain experience with mechanical testing of materials, microstructural analysis using optical and electron microscopy techniques, and scientific writing and presentation skills.