Ph.D., MIT/Woods Hole Oceanographic Joint Program in Oceanography, 1988 M.S., MIT, 1986 B.S., Duke University, 1982
Dr. Ebinger's research interests include Earthquake Seismology, Active Tectonics, Potential Fields, Crustal Dynamics and Critical Zone Imaging for Archaeology and Geosciences.
More detailed descriptions of this work can be found at the website of the GATR Group.
ISLA: Investigation of Seismicity in Louisiana. A team of scientists from Tulane, LSU, and ULL are working with the Louisiana Dept of Natural Resources to establish background levels of seismicity in NW Louisiana, the site of extension oil-shale gas extraction. Ten seismometers in the Shreveport area are recording local and regional earthquakes for studies of hydraulic fracturing, crustal structure, and hazard mitigation.
TRAILS: Turkana Rift Arrays to Investigate Lithospheric Structure. Our US-UK-Kenya-Ethiopia project in the Turkana Depression between the Ethiopian and East African plateaux combines seismic and geodetic data collection for seismic imaging, earthquake source mechanisms, surface kinematics, crustal strain rates, and lithospheric architecture. Comparisons of data products to one another, and forward and inverse models will test basic hypotheses about the role of gravitational potential energy, inherited structure from Mesozoic rifting, and mantle plume dynamics.
BARNZ: Back-Arc Rifting in New Zealand. The Taupo Volcanic Zone (TVZ) has the world’s highest silicic magma production rates, and it is a fundamental component of the Hikurangi subduction system. Uniquely, the northern TVX transitions to back-arc spreading in the Whakatane rift zone offshore. We deployed 7 seismometers in the northern TVZ to densify the New Zealand Geonet stations, so we may distinguish between active magma intrusion vs flank uplift for long-lived earthquake swarms. Seismicity patterns are providing new details on the distribution of magma bodies, role of fluids in crustal deformation, and kinematics of rifting in the TVZ and back-arc system.
SEGMeNT: Deformation and Magmatism in Early Stage rift zones. The SEGMeNT project is a multidisciplinary, multinational study focused on the northern Malawi (Nyasa) rift that includes characterizing deformation and magmatism in the crust and mantle lithosphere along several rift segments, quantifying temporal patterns in deformation, and evaluating the source of magmas. Tulane research focuses on the kinematics and dynamics of faulting and magmatism using earthquake seismology.
Crustal Loading and Causes of Intraplate Stress: The objectives of spectral analyses of regional gravity and magnetic anomaly data and earthquake catalogues are to systematically evaluate the geometries of crustal density and magnetic susceptibility contrasts (e.g., steep faults, intrusive bodies, Moho topography) giving rise to anomaly patterns. We map faults and sutures beneath New England to test fault interpretations in seismogenic zones. Our results indicate that earthquake epicenters lie within a few kilometers of steep density contrasts imaged using a variety of spectral methods. These maps include structures that are favorably oriented with respect to current stress field, and that could be reactivated.
More detailed descriptions of this work can be found at the website of the GATR Group.
Oliva*, S.J., C. J. Ebinger, C. Wauthier, J. Muirhead, S. Roecker, E. Rivalta, S. Heimann (2018), Insights into fault-magma interactions in an early-stage continental rift from source mechanisms and correlated volcano-tectonic earthquakes, Geophys. Res. Letts., doi: 10.1029/2018GL080866.
Lavayssière*, A., C. Drooff*, C. J. Ebinger, R. Gallacher, F. Illsley-Kemp, S. Oliva*, D.B. Keir, K. Mtelela, (2018) Along-axis segmentation and lower crustal earthquakes: Seismicity of the southern Tanganyika rift zone, Tectonics, doi: 10.1029/2018TC005379.
Tiberi, C., S. Gautier, C. Ebinger, S. Roecker, M. Plasman, J. Albaric. S. Peyrat, J. Deverchere, J. Perrot, R. Ferdinand-Wambura, G. Mulibo, G. Kianji, Lithospheric modification by extension and magmatism at a craton edge: The Northern Tanzanian Divergence, Geophys. J. Int., 216(3), 1693-1710, 2018.
Ebinger, C. J., Keir, D., I. Bastow, K. Whaler, J. Hammond, A. Ayele, M. S. Miller, C. Tiberi, S. Hautot, Crustal structure of rift zones in Africa: Implications for global crustal processes, in Gu, J., editor, Special Issue of Tectonics, 10.1002/2017TC004526, 2017.
