What we study
We (my collaborators, students and myself) are observational-based and specifically field-based in our approach. We address issues that are high temperature petrologic (magmatic or metamorphic) in nature and we use geochemistry, isotopes and various modeling tools, including AI more recently to make sense of our findings. Most of our targets are continental and relatively young (past billion years), although some new avenues toward the early Earth and oceanic hot spots are opening up. From the western US Cordillera, the Andes and Tibet, from the Carpathians to the Pamirs, we have been involved in understanding the origin of continental crust and the processes shaping our dynamic planet.
We run a laboratory that measures things from routine to frontier. Whole rock analyses, in situ geochronology, specialty isotopes measured on fractions of minerals are all employed in our new laboratory at the University of Bucharest. Currently in expansion, the laboratory does resolve a large percentage of out analytical needs in house and also serves a larger regional community.
Ongoing projects
Collisional volcanic arcs
Some collisional belts, about 25% of them, do have volcanic arcs firing along the margin, similar to subduction margins. The Carpathians, the greater Caucasus, the Lesser Caucasus, Zagros, eastern Anatolia, a few more. These volcanic systems are in many ways remarkably similar to subduction stratovolcanoes. How do they form? Why are they there and how does that change our paradigm on subduction magmatism? We learn that much of these systems form from partial melting of the downgoing continental plate. But that is just the beginning of the story....
Making orogenic plateaus
Large orogenic plateaus such as the Altiplano Puna or Tibet are underlain by giant bodies of magma distributed horizontally in migmatites which then segregate leucogranites into extensive sill systems. The existence of these gigantic magmatic systems in the upper to middle crust of plateaus is probably the very reason why flat lying (low relief) high elevation domains like this exist in the first place. We study the causes, duration and composition of these magmatic systems and try to decipher paleo-plateaus in the geologic record. These systems are also the biggest factories of elements like Li, Cs, Rb, B etc, all of whom are critical to the new industrial revolution.
mihai@ducea.com, mihai@ducea.com | +40 740048328