My research at UCSB focuses on the relationship between extension and magmatism in the Whipple Mountains of California.  This area of the Lower Colorado River Extensional Corridor has been subject to rapid crustal extension (unroofing a metamorphic core complex) as well as extensive volcanism.  I am employing several geochronologic techniques in concert with detailed geologic mapping in order to constrain the timing relationship between these two processes, determining eruption rates before, during, and after peak extension.  The petrologic character of the volcanic units will also be explored in order to determine the sources of melt and hypothesize as to the cause of extension in the area.