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⬆ Earthrise from the Apollo 11 Command Module, July 1969 (NASA)

Welcome to the website of Kip Hodges and his research group in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University! Here you can learn about the people in our group, our laboratories, and our projects. Principal themes of our research include continental tectonics, noble gas isotope geochemistry and chronology, and planetary field science.

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Adams, Bohon, and Young Defend their Dissertations: Three students from the KVH research group successfully defended their Ph.D. dissertations over a two-week period in April. Congratulations to newly minted doctors Byron Adams, Wendy Bohon, and Kelsey Young! While Wendy will continue working as part of the Earthscope National Office here at ASU for the near future, Byron and Kelsey are soon off to postdoctoral appointments at Universität Tübingen and NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center (respectively).
Sarah Cronk Defends her Honors Thesis: (Stephanie) Sarah Cronk recently completed an honors project on (U-Th)/He dating of sub-flow sediments within the San Francisco volcanic field as part of the KVH group, will graduate with honors from ASU this May, and is soon off to begin graduate studies at Penn State. Congratulations Sarah!
Thermal Evolution of Central Uplifts in Impact Craters Revealed by Low-Temperature Thermochronology: In a recent Chemical Geology paper, Marc Biren and colleagues report titanite (U-Th)/He thermochronologic data for basement target rocks in the central uplift of the Manicouagan impact structure. Central uplifts are rapidly transported to the surface from depth during the modification stage of the impact process, and their consequent rapid cooling can, in theory, help constrain the ages of ancient impact sites that are difficult to date employing other methods. In his proof-of-concept study, Mark's titanite (U-Th)/He results from Manicouagan are, as predicted, statistically indistinguishable from the impact age based on both U/Pb and (U-Th)/He zircon dating of crystalline impact melts from the Manicouagan melt sheet. Email Marc for a pdf of the paper.
Updated Review of Thermochronologic Techniques Published: An updated review of thermochronology in orogenic systems by KVH is now available as Chapter 3.08, Volume 3 of the second edition of the Treatise on Geochemistry. Email KVH for a pdf.
Impact Thermochronology – Age of Haughton Crater, Canada Constrained by (U-Th)/He: Most successful efforts to determine the ages of bolide impact events are based on the isotope geochronology of crystalline or glassy impact melts. In a new paper in Geophysical Research Letters by Kelsey Young and colleagues, we describe an alternative approach based on theoretical calculations that even brief thermal events related to impact can reset the isotopic systematics of unmelted target rocks. We illustrate the technique by zircon (U-Th)/He dating of impactites from the Haughton impact structure in Canada. Email Kelsey for a pdf of the paper.
Young Normal Faulting in the Hinterland of the Bhutan Himalaya: New research published in Lithosphere by Byron Adams and colleagues provides evidence for Plio-Pleistocene normal faulting along the physiographic transition from the Lower Himalayan to Higher Himalayan ranges in Bhutan. Email Byron for a pdf.
More Evidence for Large-Scale Slip on the South Tibetan Fault System: Two recent papers from our work in Bhutan – with former group member Frances Cooper as first author – imply tens of kilometers of dip-slip displacement on the master detachment of the South Tibetan system in the eastern Himalaya. Email Frances for a pdf.
Channel Flow and Landscape Evolution: Reasonable people disagree about the importance of large-scale channel flow to evolution of the Tibetan Plateau, but KVH and Byron Adams have published a paper in the new Treatise on Geomorphology on how physiographic characteristics of the plateau might reflect channel flow. Email KVH for a pdf.