I am a structural geologist with an interest in targeting key regions that bear on the paleoenvironment of Earth and Mars. My toolset ranges from field mapping, geochemistry, and petrology to remote sensing and GIS programming. With Dr. Grotzinger, I am working in the Zebra Nappe of the Naukluft Nappe Complex in south-central Namibia. The Naukluft is a major plateau and tectonic klippe, comprising an outlying remnant of the Damara orogenic belt atop the Kalahari Craton and foreland basin.

The Zebra Nappe contains a singular carbonate/clastic stratigraphy which is likely Ediacaran in age, potentially bridging well-studied autochthonous sections of Marinoan cap carbonates and a Cambrian-boundary foreland basin (the Nama group). Though folded and faulted due to thrust tectonics, this stratigraphy is of high value to understanding the Neoproterozoic paleoenvironment. My project consists of mapping and measuring sections of the Zebra Nappe in order to record its structural architecture and stratigraphy.

In addition to this field structural project, I also work with Dr. Bethany Ehlmann on the provenance of the Northeast Syrtis layered sulfates, a sedimentary unit on Mars. These two projects allow the application of structural techniques in completely different contexts.