About Dr. Tony Lowry
Dr. Tony Lowry
College of Science
Department of Geology
Tony.Lowry@usu.edu
Tony Lowry grew up a few hours up the road in Jackson Hole and first studied seismology as a PhD student at the University of Utah, before chasing around the globe in pursuit of earthquakes and related phenomena. Now an Associate Professor of Geophysics at Utah State University, Dr. Lowry received a National Science Foundation CAREER award in 2010 to study the topic in new depth. His research group is developing innovative new tools for imaging and understanding the enigmatic deep Earth processes at the roots of earthquake and volcanic processes.
Water Tectonics and the Roots of Utah’s Earthquakes
For decades, scientists have thought of mountain-bulding and earthquakes as expressions of thermal processes deep in the Earth’s mantle… But imaging of the roots of North America over the last five years tells us the deep Earth doesn’t look at all like we thought it would. Now it appears that an important contributor to Utah’s mountain vistas and restless faults is one we weren’t eve looking for: Water.