The Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences at Caltech welcomes applications for graduate study in the general field of tectonics, the study of processes governing motions of the outer part of the earth. Graduate study in tectonics embodies the Institute's historical objective of encouraging innovation across traditional disciplinary boundaries. Caltech's modest size (60-acre campus with 280 faculty, 900 undergraduates, ~1,000 graduate students) fosters real interaction between faculty and students of diverse research backgrounds.

Caltech offers an especially diverse faculty and curriculum in tectonics. At the heart of the program, which involves to varying degrees nearly half of the Division's 30 faculty members, is a strong orientation toward either basic geology or geophysics. However, research ranges across a wide variety of subdisciplines, including field-oriented structure and tectonics; thermochoronolgy and thermobarometry; volcanology and igneous petrology; geomorphology, stratigraphy and earth history; paleomagnetism and plate tectonics; seismotectonics and seismic imaging; tectonic geodesy; and theoretical geodynamics.

Depending on interests, students interested in tectonics may be admitted into either the Geology Option or the Geophysics Option. However, the Division provides an unparalleled environment for interactions across these disciplinary boundaries. As is clear from the description of recent research activities in the Division given below, it is often difficult to classify research projects in tectonics as "geology" or "geophysics," much less as belonging to any particular subdiscipline. Below we provide an annotated bibliography describing our recent tectonics research program by subdiscipline. As can be seen, it is rather difficult to categorize faculty and their research projects according to a single field. Thus, the structure of the options provides students with rigorous training and a degree in either geology or geophysics, but research is encouraged to follow the most important questions, which rarely observe the traditional boundaries.

A recent initiative of our tectonics program is the Center for Plate Boundary Dynamics. The objective of the Center is to integrate a wide array of data focusing on the issue of understanding the origin of forces that drive plate boundary deformation zones. This program, which is mainly funded by the Institute, will involve synthesis of key data types, including the geodetic and geologic velocity fields, seismotectonics, and crustal and upper mantle structure across the western North America plate boundary zone.