Category: Geothermal

What is the goal?  To provide opportunities for non-tenured AND tenured investigators to develop their individual research potential through extended collaborative visits to the Nation’s premier private, governmental, or academic research centers. Only investigators from research universities and primarily undergraduate institutions in EPSCoR states (including NM) are eligible to apply.   What’s new in 2023? Changes impacting both Tracks:

Geothermal co-lead Laura Crossey recently traveled to Tibet as part of an international research team tasked with studying geothermal systems in the complex tectonic boundary region of Tibet. Her team is looking at the system that formed the Himalayan mountains—where the Indian Plate, moving north, collides with the Eurasian Plate—because scientists still don’t understand the geometry of how and where exactly the two plates meet.

Mark Person, co-lead of the Geothermal Team for Energize New Mexico, is currently working on a proposal that will fund research to find freshwater in the unlikeliest of places: trapped beneath the salty sea floor. Dr. Person's proposal focuses on drilling off the New England coast for a water sample to determine if there is a reservoir of freshwater hidden below the shelf of Martha's Vineyard.

Last May, Geothermal Resources team co-lead Dr. Mark Person received the prestigious 2016 Distinguished Researcher Award from New Mexico Tech. The following is from the New Mexico Tech news release. Congratulations on this well-deserved award, Mark!

At NM EPSCoR we were thrilled to hear the news that Dr. Laura Crossey was honored by the New Mexico Network for Women in Science & Engineering with the annual IMPACT! Award. Laura is the co-lead for our Geothermal component, but that's only the tip of the iceberg. She knows how to inspire non-traditional and underrepresented students to pursue STEM education and careers. From all of us here at NM EPSCoR, congrats to you, Laura! No one deserves recognition for their hard work more than you.

NM EPSCoR is committed to the state of New Mexico, and we are no stranger to examining the effects of natural (or unnatural) disasters on water and the environment—for example, team members during our last grant were able to study the effects of the Las Conchas Fire on the Valles Caldera. This month, several people on the Uranium Team and the Geothermal Team have formed a collaboration among New Mexico Tech, University of New Mexico and New Mexico State University to research the long-term impact of the recent Animas River contamination from the Gold King Mine. Bonnie Frey, Uranium Team co-lead, wrote the following report about their experience.

Dr. Karl Karlstrom (Geothermal component) was recently named the University of New Mexico's 60th Annual Research Lecturer. As part of the Provot's Shared Knowledge Conference, Karl will present a lecture, “It’s about Time: Forty Years of Geologic Work in the Grand Canyon- Rocky Mountain Region,” on Thursday, April 23 in the UNM SUB Ballrooms at 6:15 PM. The Shared Knowledge Conference is a two-day event, beginning at 9:30 AM Thursday and ending at 4:00 PM Friday, April 24.

On March 8-10, Dr. Laura Crossey and Dr. Karl Karlstrom lead their geothermal class (provided by funding from NM EPSCoR) on a trip to White Rock Canyon in northern New Mexico. The class looked at the timing of recent volcanics, as well as the expressions of faults and fluid flow exposed in the canyon. Keep reading to see pictures from the trip!

How can a canyon be a Frankenstein Monster? A new theory claims that it is one large canyon formed by pieces of smaller, older canyons. A team of researchers, including three New Mexico EPSCoR participants, developed this new theory regarding the formation of the modern Grand Canyon. Their research states it was carved starting about 5-6 million years ago by the Colorado River through older "paleocanyons." Dr. Karl Karlstrom, Dr. Laura Crossey, and...

Geothermal Energy component co-lead Mark Person and his colleagues recently had their research review on groundwater reserves published in Nature. "Offshore fresh groundwater reserves as a global phenomenon," by Person (NMT), Vincent Post (Flinders University), Jacobus Groen (VU University Amsterdam), Henk Kooi (VU University Amsterdam), Shemin Ge (University of Colorado), and W. Mike Edmunds (University of Oxford), was published in Volume 504 of the magazine earlier this month and discusses the large amounts of groundwater found below continental shelves.