Miami University

Professor and Chair

Ph.D. (1982) Case Western Reserve University
1114 Shideler Hall
513-529-3216
hartwk@muohio.edu

My research interests are in the areas of igneous petrogenesis and volcanology. Specifically, my students and I use field, chronological, chemical and isotopic information to investigate the processes of magma generation and evolution, the evolution of the crust and mantle, and the environmental context of early hominids. Within this framework my research group maintains active, funded programs in northern Nevada - southern Oregon portion of the Basin and Range, the western and central portions of the Snake River Plain, and the northern Ethiopian and Afar rifts.

Possible thesis/dissertation topics:

• Continental volcanism and geodynamics in the northwestern USA.
• Physical and chemical volcanology and human evolution studies in Ethiopia.
• Cretaceous to Recent collisional tectonism and magmatism in SE Alaska.

Current/recent graduate student research:

• Kenneth Brown (Ph.D. in progress) Cretaceous magmatism and tectonic development in the Wrangell-Nutzotin Mountains area, Alaska.
• Laura Walkup (M.S. in progress) Tephrochemical investigations of heterogeneous silicic eruptive products in the Middle Awash region, Afar, Ethiopia.
• Alicja Wypych (Ph.D. in progress) Petrogenesis and tectonic significance of mid-Miocene silicic volcanism in the Owyhee Plateau - SE High Lava Plains reagion, northwestern USA.
• Tom Hinterberger (M.S. in progress) A Re-Os investigation of monogenetic basalt volcanism in SE Oregon.
• Emily Short (M.S. in progress) Petrologic and tectonic significance of Quaternary basaltic volcanism at the western edge of the Owyhee Plateau, Oregon.
  

Selected publications:

WoldeGabriel, G., Gilbert, W.H., Hart, W.K., Renne, Pr.R. and Ambrose, S.H. (2008) Chpater 2: Geology and Geochronology, in Gilbert, W.H. and Asfaw, B., eds., Homo Erectus: Pleistocene Evidence from the Middle Awash, Ethiopia, p. 13-43, The Middle Awash Series (T.D. White, ed.), University of California Press.

Brueseke, M.E. and Hart, W.K. (2008) Geology and petrology of the mid-Miocene Santa Rosa - Calico Volcanic Field, northern Nevada, Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology Bulletin 113 (online publication http://www.nbmg.unr.edu/dox/dox.htm) (46 pages plus 36 pages of figures and 4 tables; CD version available).

Bondre, N.R. and Hart, W.K. (2008) Morphological and textural diversity of the Steens Basalt lava flows, southeastern Oregon, USA: implications for emplacement style and nature of eruptive episodes. Bulletin of Volcanology, 70, 999-1019 [DOl: 10.1007/s00445-007-0182-x].

Westgate, J.A., Preece, S.J., Froese, D.G., Pearce, N.J.G., Roberts, R.G., Demuro, M., Hart, W.K., and Perkins, W. (2008) Changing ideas on the identity and stratigraphic significance of the Sheep Creek tephra bes in Alaska and the Yukon Territory, northwestern North America. Quaternary International, 178, 183-209 [DOl: 10.1016/j.quaint.2007.03.009].

Brueseke, M.E., Hart, W.K., and Heizler, M.T. (2008) Diverse mid-Miocene silicic volcanism associated with the Yellowstone-Newberry thermal anomaly. Bullletin of Volcanology, 70, 343-360 [DOl: 10.1007/s00445-007-0142-5] (Invited).

Snyder, D.C. and Hart, W.K. (2007) The White Mountian granitoid suite: isotopic constraints on source reservoirs for Cretaceious magmatism within the Wrangellia Terrane, in Ridgeway, K.D., Trop, J.M., O'Neill, J.M., and Glen, J., eds., Tectonic growth of a collisional margin: crustal evolution of southern Alaska. Geological Society of America, Special Paper 431, 379-400.

Selected grants:

• U.S. Geological Survey, National Cooperative Geological Mapping Program, EDMAP 2009
  Miocene arrival of the Yellowstone hotspot and inception of Basin and Range extension in southern Oregon.
• National Science Foundation 2007 - 2009 (with Elisabeth Widom)
  Technician support: Management of thermal ionization mass spectrometry and isotope geochemistry labs.
• National Science Foundation 2005 - 2010
  Collaborative research: understanding the causes of continental intraplate tectonomagmatism: a case study in the Pacific Northwest.

Teaching Interests:

GLG 115.H - Understanding the Earth Honors Lab
GLG 357 - Igneous and Metamorphic Petrology
GLG 411/511 - Field Geology
GLG 646 - Igneous Petrology
GLG 699 - Advanced Field Training
GLG 730 - Advanced Igneous Petrology
GLG 750 - Advanced Studies in Crust & Mantle Developmentdescription.

For complete descriptions of courses please click here.

Please click here to see Dr. Hart's curriculum vita.