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Erik Klemetti
B.A. in in Geosciences and History from Williams College, 1999
Ph.D. in in Geology from Oregon State University, 2005
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Teaching
I suppose I’ve been fascinated by geology since I was young, either with the vast mineral collection my grandmother in Massachusetts had collected or with the vistas of Nevado del Ruiz from my other grandparents home in Colombia. Not to sound clichéd, but every rock (or crystal) does tell its own story, and that is what geologist get to do: unlock the history recorded in the rocks. That is how I like to teach geology – by looking at the process the created the rock and then how we see the record of that process imparted on the physical and chemical characteristics of the rocks and crystals. In that way, geology goes beyond just a bunch of facts piled together to a chain of actions that are all inter-related, which allows for you to think about why the ideas are important rather than just reciting them.
Research
My research focuses on the timescales of magmatism, such as how long does it take to generate a body of magma, how long can you store magma in the crust, what are the rates of eruptions during the lifetime of a volcano and what do they tell us about the subsurface magmatic system. These questions can help elucidate on “big picture” questions such how quickly is continental crust generated and how are plutons constructed temporally and physically. By studying volcanic timescales, we also get a better understanding of hazards posed by active volcanoes. If you’re interested in the ways I study timescales - uranium-series disequilibria and argon-argon geochronology - feel free to take a look at my research page. There you can read about my current projects in New Zealand, Oregon, Chile, California and Maine.
I write a blog on active volcanism worldwide called Eruptions. I try to collect media reports on volcanic eruptions, distill the sometimes-disparate information, discuss the eruptions and the way the eruptions are reported in the media. The blog is visited by thousands of readers a day that vary from casual readers to other volcano researchers.
For more information please see my Personal Webpage.
Publications
Klemetti, E.W. and Grunder, A.L., 2008, Volcanic Evolution of Volcan Aucanquilcha: a long-lived dacite volcano in the Central Andes of northern Chile. Bulletin of Volcanology, volume 70, no. 5, pp. 633-650.
Grunder, A.L., Klemetti, E.W., Feeley, T.C. and McKee, C.M., 2008, Eleven million years of arc volcanism at the Aucanquilcha Volcanic Cluster, northern Chilean Andes: Implications for the life span and emplacement of plutons. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh: Earth Sciences, volume 97, pp. 415-436.
Wobus, R.A., Newton, J.L., Klemetti, E.W., Cardoos, N.C., and Hawkins, D.P., 2006, Silurian metavolcanic rocks of Vinalhaven Island, Penobscot Bay, Maine: arc to backarc transition? Northeastern Geology & Environmental Sciences, volume 28, no. 4, pp. 342-357.