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vitali

Watercolor by Vitali Shoshin painted during our first Tolbachik field work, 1994

Chuck Connor

Professor, Department of Geology, USF

My primary research interests are physical volcanology and geophysics. My students, collaborators, and I concentrate on phenomena that can be studied from field, lab, and numerical perspectives. The ideal project for me involves hard field work (usually on volcanoes!), a lab component where the geologic processes can be studied in isolation and simplified form, and numerical simulation for understanding the basic physical controls on the process. Because this tripartite solution is so hard to achieve, my ideal project also involves lots of collaboration! As the painting by Vitali Shoshin illustrates so well, insight is most clear when we help each other see a situation from many perspectives.

In volcanology, my research has focused on development of volcanic hazard and risk models. I also devote considerable energy to development of new techniques for understanding the structural setting of basaltic volcanic fields, particularly in the southern Basin and Range, and to monitoring and modeling heat and mass transfer in volcanoes, with the goal of improving volcano monitoring. I conduct this research at volcanoes all over the world, including: Cerro Negro, Masaya (Nicaragua); Kirishima (Japan); Aragats (Armenia); Chaiten (Chile). .

My research in geophysics involves high resolution magnetic surveys and techniques, inversion of magnetic data, for example using the downhill simplex methods, data processing using Fourier transforms and wavelets, and some transient electromagnetics. I most enjoy geophysics when we can successfully use multiple methods simultaneously to create a clear picture of a geological structure or geological process. Recent geophysics projects have been in Armenia, Nicaragua, the western US, and Japan.

To support this research I have various geophysical instruments (TEM, slingram EM, Cs-vapor magnetometer, differential GPS, carbon dioxide flux meter), data loggers (we sometimes build our own), and a beowulf cluster for parallel programming involved in heavy lifting numerical problems and stochastic simulations. Funding for much of my research comes from the US National Science Foundation, the US Geological Survey, and WorldBank.

wagoneering

climb high, take chances!

Follow these links to: my publications with some PDFs, the volcano group website, some computer codes (Java, C, Python, Perl) for geophysics and volcanology, and my cv (pdf).

contact: Chuck Connor, Department of Geology - SCA 528, University of South Florida, 4202 E. Fowler Ave., Tampa, FL, 33620, USA [Ph: 813-974-0325] [cconnor@cas.usf.edu]