Dr Mike Branney, U. Leicester (volcanology), Dr Marc Reichow, U. Leicester (Ar-Ar Geochronology, Dr Stephen Grebby, British Geological Survey (remote sensing), Dr Graham Ferrier, University of Hull (remote sensing), Dr Kurt Constenius, Department of Geosciences, U. of Arizona (reflection seismology), Professor Brian Horton, Department of Geology, U. of Texas at Austin (sedimentology), Dr Jim Coogan, Petro Matad (basin analysis), Dr Douwe van Hinsbergen, University of Oslo (regional tectonics, paleomagnetism), Dr Zhang Jin, China Institute of Geology(regional tectonics), Professor Brian Windley, Department of Geology, U. of Leicester (regional tectonics), Dr. Diane Seward, ETH, Zurich fission-track dating), Dr. Larry Snee , USGS, Denver (Ar-Ar dating), Professor Barbara Maher, U. Lancaster (Loess studies), Dr. Lewis Owen, Department of Geology, U. Cincinnati (tectonic geomorphology, Quaternary climate change, rates of Quaternary deformation), Dr. Sarah Davies, Department of Geology, U. of Leicester (Altai basin geology), Dr. Duncan McClean, U. Sheffield (Gobi Desert palynology), Dr. Gijs Straathof, U. Edinburgh (palaeomagnetism), Dr. Kevin Tansey, U. Leicester (LiDAR applications), Dr. Jon Naden, British Geological Survey (Cyprus geology and VMS deposits), Dr. Fraukje Brouwer, Department of Geology, Universitat Bern (Altai basement PTt studies), Dr. Mike Petterson, British Geological Survey (economic geology, southern Mongolia), Dr. Tiffany Barry, Department of Geology, U. of Leicester (Mesozoic-Cenozoic Mongolian volcanism, geochemistry, igneous petrology), Dr Damien Delvaux, Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, Belgium (fault studies, regional seismicity, regional stress), Dr. D. Dorjnamjaa, Palaeontological Centre, Mongolian Academy of Sciences (Mongolian Precambrian geology), Dr. J. Badamgarav, Mongolian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Geology (Mongolian Mesozoic geology), Dr. G. Badarch, Mongolian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Geology (Mongolian regional tectonics), G. Khishigsuren, Mongolian University of Science and Technology (Mongolian geology), Professor Li Jiliang, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Geology (regional tectonics), Dr Andrej Gosar Environmental Agency of the Republic of Slovenia Seismology Office, Dr Stanka Sebela, Karst Institute, Postojna, Dr Vanja Kastelic, University of Ljubljana

• AOGS Annual Meeting, Taipei, Taiwan, 2011 Title: Major Fault Systems and Mountain Building Processes in the Tibetan Foreland and Beishan Region, NW China (Invited Lecture)
• AOGS Annual Meeting, Taipei, Taiwan, 2011 Title: Tectonic setting and structural evolution of the Late Cenozoic Gobi Altai Orogen
• TSG Annual Meeting, Birmingham, 2010 Title: Late Cenozoic reactivation of polydeformed basement in the Chinese Beishan region north of Tibet
• AGU Annual Meeting, San Francisco, 2009 Title: Tectonic setting and structural evolution of the Late Cenozoic Gobi Altai Orogen, Mongolia
• SNET XII Conference, Ouro Preto, Brazil, 2009 Title: Intracontinental strike-slip faulting and transpressional mountain building: Examples from Central Asia (Keynote Lecture)
• TSG Annual Meeting, Keele, 2009 Title: Exhumation of a Cretaceous rift complex within a Late Cenozoic restraining bend, southern Mongolia: Implications for the crustal evolution of the Gobi Altai region
• EGU Annual Meeting, Vienna, 2007 Title: Application of LiDAR to mapping seismogenic faults in forested mountainous terrain, Julian Alps, NW Slovenia
• EGU Annual Meeting, Vienna, 2007 Title: Intracontinental Transpressional Mountain Building and Coupled Basin Development in the Gobi Altai Region, Mongolia
• TSG Annual Meeting, Glasgow, 2007 Title: Application of LiDAR to mapping seismogenic faults in forested mountainous terrain, Julian Alps, NW Slovenia
• GRSG Annual Conference: Remote Sensing of Earth Resources, London, 2006 Title: LiDAR mapping of faults in forested mountainous terrain, Julian Alps, NW Slovenia
• COST-Action 625 Workshop on Active Faults, Florence, 2006 Title: Application of LiDAR to mapping seismogenic faults in forested mountainous terrain, Julian Alps, NW Slovenia (Invited Lecture)
• EGU Meeting, Vienna, 2006 Title: Structural and topographic characteristics of restraining bend mountain ranges in the Altai, Gobi Altai and easternmost Tien Shan
• COST-Action 625 Workshop on Active Faults, Wroclaw, Poland 2005 Title: Investigations into Active Faulting, Earthquake Hazards and Crustal Structure, NW Slovenia (Invited Lecture)
• Geological Society of London Conference on the Tectonics of Strike-Slip Restraining and Releasing Bends in Continental and Oceanic Settings, London, 2005 Title: Mountain building processes in intracontinental intraplate transpressional mountain belts: Lessons from the Altai, Gobi Altai, and easternmost Tien Shan
• EGU Meeting, Vienna, 2005 Title: Mountain building processes in intracontinental intraplate transpressional mountain belts: Lessons from the Altai and Gobi Altai, Mongolia
• TSG Annual Meeting, Plymouth, 2005 Title: Mountain building processes in intracontinental intraplate transpressional mountain belts: Lessons from the Altai and Gobi Altai, Mongolia
• AGU Annual Meeting, San Francisco 2004 Title: Processes of Active Intraplate Deformation in the Mongolian Altai and Gobi Altai
• COST-Action 625 Workshop on Active Faults, Sofia, Bulgaria 2003 Title: Field Investigations of Active Faulting in Northwest Slovenia (Invited Lecture)
• EGS-AGU-EUG Joint Assembly, Nice, 2003 Title: Active Faulting and Intracontinental Deformation in the Mongolian Altai
• TSG Annual Meeting, Liverpool, 2003 Title: Restraining Bends, Flower Structure Coalescence, and Transpressional Duplexing in the Mongolian Altai
• COST-Action 625 Workshop on Active Faults, Camerino Italy, 2002 Title: Criteria for identifying active range bounding faults and documenting their kinematic nature: examples from Mongolia and western China
• GSA Cordillera Section Meeting, Los Angeles 2001, Title: Crustal Architecture of the Northwestern Mongolian Altai
• TSG Annual Meeting, Leeds, 2001 Title: Cenozoic Transpressional Reactivation of the Mongolian High Altai
• AGU Annual Meeting, San Francisco, 2000 Title:Crustal Architecture of the Northwestern Mongolian Altai
• IGCP 400 Conference on Continental Rifting, Dead Sea, Israel, 2000 Title: Lithospheric Controls on the development of intraplate rifts and depressions in Central Asia: Extrusion revisited
• Geoscience 2000, Manchester, England, 2000 Title: Mechanisms of Late Cenozoic mountain building in the easternmost Tien Shan, Mongolian Altai and Hangay Dome
• TSG Annual Meeting, Manchester, England, 2000 Title: Late Cenozoic extension in the southern Hangay Dome region, Mongolia: Implications for the evolution of the Baikal Rift Province
• IGCP 400 Conference on Continental Rifting, Irkutsk, Russia, 1999 Title: Late Cenozoic extension in the southern Hangay Dome Region, Mongolia: Implications for the evolution of the Baikal Rift Province
• EUG Strasbourg, France, 1999 Title: Intracontinental crustal doming and regional extension in Central Mongolia: Structural evidence for an active plume beneath Central Asia
• GSA Penrose Conference on Tectonics of Continental Interiors, Cedar City, Utah, 1997 Title: Lithospheric controls on Late Cenozoic construction of the Mongolian Altai
• EUG Strasbourg, 1997 Title: Cenozoic Development of the Mongolian Altai
• TSG Transpression Conference, London, 1997 Title: Late Cenozoic Transpressional Mountain Building in the Mongolian Altai
• GSA fall meeting, New Orleans, 1995 Title: Intracontinental mountain building in western Mongolia: the late Cenozoic transpressional uplift of the Altai.

• 2010: Royal Society International Travel Grant: Active fault systems and earthquake hazards in the Tibetan foreland region near Dunhuang, NW China (£2239; PI)
• 2010: NERC Field Spectroscopy Facility: A Spectro-radiometric study of the North Troodos Ophiolite, Cyprus (£8,490 in kind; PI)
• 2010: NERC Airborne Remote Sensing Facility: Investigation of the lithological and structural architecture of the Northern Troodos Mountains, Cyprus (£98,567 in kind; PI)
• 2009: NERC Standard Grant: Scales and Frequencies of Snake River Type Super-Eruptions of the Yellowstone Hot-Spot Track, USA (£558,421, Co-I)
• 2008: Royal Society International Incoming Fellowship: Strike-Slip Fault Systems and Active Tectonics of the Bei Shan, NW China (£12,830; PI)
• 2007: British Geological Survey: Application of Airborne LiDAR to Fault Mapping (£6000; PI)
• 2004: NERC Airborne Remote Sensing Facility: LiDAR Mapping of Seismogenic Faults in NW Slovenia (£20,000 in kind; PI)
• 2003/4: NERC CONNECT B Grant: Geological and Geophysical Investigations into Active Processes of Intracontinental Basin Development (£180,093; PI)
• 2003/4: Industrial Research Grant: Refraction/wide-angle reflection profiling of polydeformed intracontinental transpressional basins, southern Mongolia (£191,291; PI)
• 2003: Royal Society Research Grant: Earthquake Geology, Northwest Slovenia (£3570; PI)
• 2002: British Geological Survey: Predictive Metallogeny of Mongolia (£3600; PI)
• 2001: NERC NIGL Grant: Palaeozoic accretion in Western Mongolia (£13,500 in kind; PI)
• 2001: Royal Society Research Grant: Evolution of Restraining Bends, Mongolia (£4349; PI)
• 2001: Royal Society Grant to attend GSA symposium on "Tectonics of Mongolia and China"(£534)
• 2001: Leicester Geology Department research grant for work in Mongolia (£600)
• 2000: Leicester Geology Department research grant for work in Mongolia (£300)
• 2000: Royal Society IGCP grant to attend continental rifts workshop(3520)
• 1999: European Commission Marie Curie Individual Fellowship (£68,383; PI)
• 1998: National Geographic Society Research Grant: "Geological Evolution of the Mongolian High Altai" (£10,870; PI)
• 1998: Royal Society Research Grant "Origin of Hangay Dome, Mongolia"(£3717; PI)
• 1997: Royal Society Grant to attend GSA Penrose Conference on "Tectonics of Continental Interiors"(£500)
• 1997: Royal Society Grant to attend continental rifts workship"(£400)
• 1996: Leicester Geology Department research grant for work in Mongolia (£750)
• 1993: National Science Foundation NATO Postdoctoral Fellowship: "Structural investigations of the Altai Range, western Mongolia" (£28,900; PI)

  
  

Other Research and External Activities

• EGU 2012, Symposium convenor on Transpressional Deformation Belts
• EGU 2012, Symposium convenor Continental Transform Systems
• 2011-13: EGU Tectonics and Structural Geology Division Programme Committee
• 2009: SNET VI International Conference on Tectonics, Ouro Preto Brazil, Keynote Speaker
• 2009-2012: External Examiner, Royal Holloway, University of London
• 1999-Present: Editorial Board for Tectonophysics
• 2006-Present: Editorial Board for Journal of Asian Earth Sciences
• EGU 2009, Symposium convenor on Airborne and Terrestrial Laser Scanning and geomorphology: possibilities, problems, and solutions.
• EGU 2007, Symposium convenor on Active Tectonics of Circum-Adriatic Region.
• Co-convenor, Geological Society of London Conference on the Tectonics of Strike-Slip Restraining and Releasing Bends in Continental and Oceanic Settings, London, 2005.
• EGU 2006, Symposium convenor on Mountain Building Processes.
• EGU 2005 Symposium convenor on Orogeny, Plateau Formation and Intracontinental Deformation in Eurasia and South America.
• Treasurer, Tectonic Studies Group, 2003-2006.
• Main Organizer (with Richard England) of Tectonic Studies Group Annual Meeting in Leicester, January, 2002.
• UK Representative to Management Committee of EC COST-Action 625: "3D Monitoring of Active Faults", 2002-2007.
• Research Director for Department of Geology, University of Leicester, 2002-2004
• Invited lectures within UK: U. Birmingham, Cambridge, U. Leeds, Open University, Imperial College, Royal Holloway, Oxford, U. Liverpool, East Midlands Geological Society, Geologists Association, Cambridge Geological Society, Leicester Lit. and Phil., various other presentations to schools and historical societies

  
  

Restraining Bends, Flower Structure Coalescence, and Transpressional Duplexing in the Mongolian Altai (TSG Meeting Abstract, 2003)

The Mongolian Altai is a tectonically active intra-continental mountain range dominated by dextral transpressional deformation. Late Cenozoic uplift of the Altai is believed to be a distant strain response to the Indo-Eurasia collision more than 2000km to the south. The modern range is essentially a reactivated Palaeozoic orogen containing basement terranes which represent arc, back-arc and subduction complex assemblages which lie between the more rigid Junggar and Hangay blocks which have resisted Cenozoic contractional deformation. The structural architecture of the Mongolian Altai is particularly interesting because the range is dominated by discrete block uplifts that occur along an array of NW-striking, regional strike-slip faults, and at their termination zones. Ranges can be categorized as single transpressional ridges, terminal restraining bends, partial restraining bends, flower-structure pop-ups, and triangular tilt blocks. Regional drainage patterns and active fault orientations indicate that most ranges are topographically asymmetric because they are structurally asymmetric flower structures or single thrust-bounded tilt blocks. The highest peaks in the region (Sutai and Tsambagarav Uul - 4000m+) are restraining bends containing oblique-slip duplexes with positive flower structure cross-sections. These ranges are likely to have experienced vertical axis rotations leading to along-strike and across-strike growth of the range and progressively changing fault kinematics. Outward growth of individual ranges is by simple overthrusting or growth of forebergs within oblique-slip duplexes in bounding alluvial basins. Reactivation of the predominantly NW-striking, NE-dipping basement fabrics and older faults is an important first-order influence on the orientation of major Cenozoic faults. Coalescence of transpressional ranges in the eastern Altai is causing progressive closure of intramontane basins (ramp basins) and development of a topographically continuous mountain belt. Anticlockwise rotation of the northern and southern Mongolian Altai regions is suggested by the regional oroclines at both ends, but only proven palaeomagnetically for the northwest end. If regional anticlockwise rotation has also affected the Late Cenozoic evolution of the southeastern Altai, then it is likely that strike-slip faults and whole mountain ranges have progressively reoriented to directions more favourable for oblique-slip and contractional deformation obscuring the older strike-slip history. The geometric relationship between rigid block boundaries, Palaeozoic basement structural grain and the dominantly northeast maximum horizontal stress has dictated the kinematics of Late Cenozoic deformation in the Mongolian Altai. Intra-plate transpressional mountain building processes as observed in the Altai probably occur in other tectonically active intra-continental regions such as Yunnan, western Tien Shan, Hindu Kush, and the Stanovoy Range, and are likely to have operated in ancient continental interior orogens driven by distant continental collisions.

Tectonic setting and structural evolution of the Late Cenozoic Gobi Altai Orogen, Mongolia (AGU Meeting Abstract, 2009)

The Gobi Altai is an intraplate, intracontinental transpressional orogen in southern Mongolia that formed in the Late Cenozoic as a distant response to the Indo-Eurasia collision. The modern range formed within crust constructed by successive terrane accretion and ocean suturing events and widespread granite plutonism throughout the Paleozoic. Modern reactivation of the Gobi Altai crust and the kinematics of Quaternary faults are fundamentally controlled by Paleozoic basement structural trends, the location of rigid Precambrian blocks, orientation of SHmax and possible thermal weakening of the lower crust due to an extensive history of Mesozoic-Cenozoic basaltic volcanism in the region, and the presence of thermally elevated asthenosphere under the Hangay Dome to the north. Modern mountain building processes in the Gobi Altai typically involve reactivation of NW-striking basement structures in thrust mode and development of linking E-W left-lateral strike-slip faults which crosscut basement structures within an overall left-lateral transpressional regime. Restraining bends, other transpressional ridges and thrusted basement blocks are the main range type, but are discontinuously distributed and separated by internally drained basins filling with modern alluvial deposits. Unlike a contractional thrust belt, there is no orogenic foreland or hinterland, and thrusts are both NE and SW directed with no evidence for a basal decollement. Normal faults related to widespread Cretaceous rifting in the region appear to be unfavourably oriented for Late Cenozoic reactivation despite widespread topographic inversion of Cretaceous basin sequences. The discovery of major Cretaceous normal fault systems in the Gobi Altai has important implications for workers investigating the neotectonic development of the region who should consider the extent to which the pre-existing rift basin architecture may have influenced the modern orogenic architecture and network of seismically active faults in the region. Although the Gobi Altai has structural and basinal elements similar to continental transform systems undergoing transpressional deformation, such as the San Andreas system, it differs in several important aspects. The Gobi Altai is a reactivated mechanically weak belt between more rigid basement blocks in a continental interior. The Gobi Altai does not transfer plate motions, but terminally accommodates intraplate strain by oblique deformation. The Gobi Altai is a diffuse belt of deformation, but no singular strike-slip fault is dominant as is the case with the San Andreas Fault or Dead Sea Transform. Because the Gobi Altai is an actively developing youthful mountain range in an arid region with low erosion rates, it provides an excellent opportunity to study the way a continental interior reactivates due to a distant continental collision. Preserved peneplain surfaces, fresh alluvial fans, and sharply defined fault scarps and active mountain fronts express a very strong tectonic signal, without the obscuring effects of a humid/high erosion rate climate signal. Finally, the Gobi Altai is a useful analog for how other more advanced intracontinental transpressional orogens such as the eastern Tien Shan and Altai developed during earlier stages of their evolution.