John A. Hole
RESEARCH INTERESTS: EXPLORATION SEISMOLOGY OF THE CONTINENTAL CRUST
My research interests are
- the application of reflection and refraction seismology
to the study of Earth's crust, and
- the development and implementation of improved and practical
seismic acquisition and analysis techniques.
My research emphasis is on the acquisition and analysis of
seismic reflection and seismic refraction data and
their interpretation in terms of geological structure, composition,
evolution, and tectonics. Applications include tectonics,
resource exploration (petroleum, mining, groundwater),
natural hazard assessment, geotechnical evaluation,
and environmental studies.
Working with real data stimulates my research interest in the
development of improved field and analysis procedures, extending
traditional seismic methods to solve geologic problems in new ways.
Methods of interest include full-wavefield inversion, prestack depth migration, seismic guided waves, and three-dimensional traveltime inversion.
Current projects include:
- Field Projects and Subsequent Data Analysis
-
seismic imaging of western Idaho - eastern Oregon (IDOR),
investigating deformation and magmatic modification
of a steep continental margin
(field work summer 2012)
-
Aftershock Imaging with Dense Arrays (AIDA) - Virginia,
investigating the aftershock zone of the magnitude 5.8,
23 August 2011 earthquake in central Virginia
(field work summer-fall 2011)
-
Salton Seismic Imaging Project (SSIP), southern California,
investigating continental rift processes in the Salton Trough and
earthquake hazards on associated transform faults
(field work winter-spring 2011)
-
seismic imaging of the Coast Ranges batholith, British Columbia
(Batholiths),
investigating arc magmatic modification of the continental crust
(field work 2009)
- seismic refraction and reflection studies of crater collapse
mechanisms at the 35 Ma 85-km wide
Chesapeake Bay impact crater
(field work 2002, 2004)
- seismic reflection and refraction studies of the
San Andreas Fault near Parkfield CA, at the site that
EarthScope's
SAFOD project has drilled through the fault
(field work 1998, 2003)
- Technical Studies (synthetic and/or real data)
- imaging the internal properties of major active fault zones using
seismic guided waves (application to data from the San Andreas Fault)
- waveform inversion (aka diffraction tomography) of wide-angle
refraction and reflection data (application to San Andreas Fault,
Chesapeake Bay, and Salton Trough datasets)
- imaging using ambient noise recorded on dense linear arrays
(application to Batholiths, Salton, and Virginia earthquake datasets)
- resolution of travel time and waveform inversion
I am looking for good graduate students.
Please contact me if interested.
TEACHING
Graduate Students and Research Associates
RESEARCH FACILITIES
The geophysics group consists of several professors:
Martin Chapman,
John Hole,
Scott King,
Bob Lowell,
Arthur Snoke,
Chester Weiss,
Ying Zhou.
The geophysics group maintains a network of Linux and Mac OSX
workstations, and tens of Terabytes of disk space. Seismology and
Geodynamics operate a Linux cluster with 96x8-core servers.
We have one Unix/Linux system administrator.
The Virginia Tech
Advanced Research Computing
facility operates several clusters that are being used for geophysical research.
Major commercial software licences include
Landmark's
suite for 3D seismic processsing (Promax) and seismic & stratigraphic interpretation, and
ESRI's Geographical Information System (GIS).
Seismic software developed in-house involves 3-D modeling and inversion of times and waveforms.
Exploration geophysics field equipment includes:
- Geometrics Strataview 60-channel, 24-bit seismic recording system, geophones and cables.
- Sensors and Software Pulse-Echo 100 ground-penetrating radar (12.5 - 200 MHz).
- AGI SuperSting 8-channel, 64-electrode electrical resistivity
- Campus 25-electrode electrical resistivity.
- Scintrex ENVI VLF electromagnetics with resistivity.
- Trimble real-time kinematic GPS surveying equipment (cm accuracy).
Department of Geosciences
Virginia Tech
4044 Derring Hall (MC 0420)
Blacksburg, VA 24061
phone: 1-540-231-3858
fax: 1-540-231-3386
office: 1040 Derring Hall
e-mail: hole@vt.edu
last updated September 2011
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