uOttawa Geophysics

Our group’s research addresses fundamental questions concerning the evolution and dynamics of the solid Earth as revealed by geophysical data. The objective of our research program is to constrain the role of geological structure on the dynamics of active ocean-continent tectonic systems. For example, a lot of our active projects involve characterizing convergent and transform ocean-continent plate boundaries and elucidating the growth and fate of large cordilleras. Our work is informed by robust statistical analysis and modelling of seismic and geophysical data collected from a number of sources. Our tools of predilection include the processing of large quantities of broadband seismic data obtained from public archives. We develop and make publicly available a lot of our numerical tools - check out the Software page. We also install our own seismic monitoring stations - check out the Field page.

News

PhD position in Marine Seismology

The uOttawa Geophysics Group invites applications for 1 PhD position in marine seismology, co-supervised with the Dalhousie Geophysics …

Congratulations!

Congratulations are in order for two recent UOgeophysics graduates! Stephen Mosher successfully defended his thesis entitled …

Hikurangi project funded

We are happy to announce that our proposal for the study of the southern Hikurangi subduction zone has been fully supported. This …

Congrats Clément!

David Elliott Best Paper Award

Our paper entitled “Seismic evidence for lithospheric thinning and heat in the northern Canadian Cordillera” was recently awarded the …

Meet the Team

Faculty

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Pascal Audet

Professor of Geophysics & University Research Chair

Grad Students

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Morgan McLellan

PhD Candidate

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Hao Mai

PhD Student

Alumni

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Jeremy Gosselin

NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow

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Clément Estève

Wares Postdoctoral Fellow

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Andrew Schaeffer

Research Scientist, PhD

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Stephen G. Mosher

Scientific Data Specialist, PhD

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Zhezhe Lu

PhD Student

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Élyse Gaudreau

PhD Student

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Shutian Ma

Research Seismologist, PhD

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Philippe Dales

Research Geophysicist, PhD

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Alizia Tarayoun

Research engineer, PhD

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Andrew Reynen

Data Scientist

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Elise Cossette

Rédactrice

Research

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Canadian Cordillera

The Canadian Cordillera is a large, elevated and deformed landmass in western Canada created by the forces of plate tectonics. Our group uses seismic data to produce images of its deep internal structure, which give insight into its history and evolution.

Data Science

Seismology and geophysics are data-rich fields with fully open data sets. Our group develops methods rooted in signal processing and statistical learning to extract insightful information on geophysical processes and Earth structure from large data sets.

Elastic thickness

The elastic thickness of the lithosphere is a measure of the stiffness of tectonic plates, and can be used to investigate its thermal and rheological structure. Our group develops wavelet analysis techniques to estimate its distribution on Earth and terrestrial planets

Ocean-bottom seismology

Most tectonic plate boundaries are located offshore, away from land-based seismic investigation. Our group works toward increasing marine seismic coverage using ocean-bottom seismic (OBS) stations to study plate tectonics in the oceans using OBS data.

Subduction zones

The rubbing of tectonic plates at subduction zones produces the largest and most lethal earthquakes. Our group studies the geological environment where these earthquakes occur using seismic imaging methods.

Software

We believe in open science and open-source software. These are some of the computer programs that we developed. Please feel free to fork the repositories on GitHub, improve the codes, and send your feedback!

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Tools for OBS stations

Seismic Station Orientation

Lithosphere Magnetic Thickness

Lithosphere Elastic Thickness

Teleseismic body-wave modeling

Teleseismic Receiver Functions

Teleseismic Shear-Wave Splitting

Station Database Tools

Teleseismic body-wave modeling