Exhumation History determined by Zircon Fission Track Dating of the Southern Swiss Alps - Rosalba Queirolo
Hometown: Germantown NY
Class Year: 2008
Major: Geology
Research Advisor: John Garver
Project Description:
I participated in this research through the Geology Keck Consortium. Several rock samples composed of minerals, including zircon and apatite, were collected in a vertical (highest 2870 m) and horizontal transect throughout the Southern Swiss Alps and Northern Italian Alps. Each sample site was chosen because the location was meant to best fit a mathematical computer model of the Alps formation (created by Devin McPhillips). We ascended high peaks in Val Maggie, Locarno, Bocchette de Val Maggia, Val Cerzasca, and along the western shore of Lago Maggia and collected samples at ~200 to 300 m vertical intervals. These rock samples will be carefully broken down in order to extract the desired minerals, and these minerals will then be analyzed using fission track dating and helium apatite dating (Jessica Stanley, MIT) methods. The fission track dating method is used to formulate the age of the samples according to the nuclear fission caused by the radioactive decay rate of uranium, resulting fission tracks. Using two different analysis methods will improve the accuracy of the results, which will reveal a pattern of regional exhumation and then be related to the tectonic evolution of the Alps.