Maggie Ellis Curry

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Bio

I am a tectonics systems geologist focusing mostly on ancient large-scale tectonic systems. I am endlessly curious in anything tectonics touches: the deformation, the landscapes, the basins. These interests take me to mountain ranges and basins spanning the globe and geologic time. My students are conducting research from the North Slope of Alaska to the Piedmont of North Carolina, typically combining numerical models with various types of data. I consider myself a thermochronologist and am keen to use various low-temperature thermochronometric systems to explore how tectonic systems have evolved through time.

I teach undergraduate and graduate level courses in structural geology, geologic field methods (AKA field camp), and tectonic systems.

View my research publications here: Google scholar link

Area(s) of Expertise

I am interested in the feedbacks between tectonics, surface processes, and basins. Most of my research involves combining data with numerical models to test hypotheses. In the course of my research I use many types of data including thermochronology, geochronology (from zircon U-Pb to cosmogenic nuclides), subsurface (wells, seismic), geomorphic, and field measurements and observations. I utilize the HPC here at NCSU to run large inverse models, including thermo-kinematic and landscape evolution models. I am also actively developing new combined flexural and thermal subsidence models for application to tectonic basins.

Publications

• Structural Restorations of the Complete Conjugate US-Mexico Eastern Gulf of Mexico Margin , TECTONICS (2024)
• Aseismic ridge subduction focused late Cenozoic exhumation above the Peruvian flat slab , EARTH AND PLANETARY SCIENCE LETTERS (2022)
• Variable thermal histories across the Pyrenees orogen recorded in modern river sand detrital geo-/thermochronology and PECUBE thermokinematic modelling , BASIN RESEARCH (2022)
• Spatio-temporal patterns of Pyrenean exhumation revealed by inverse thermo-kinematic modeling of a large thermochronologic data set , Geology (2021)
• Supplemental Material: Spatio-temporal patterns of Pyrenean exhumation revealed by inverse thermo-kinematic modeling of a large thermochronologic data set , (2021)
• Supplemental Material: Spatio-temporal patterns of Pyrenean exhumation revealed by inverse thermo-kinematic modeling of a large thermochronologic data set , (2021)
• Growth of Collisional Orogens From Small and Cold to Large and Hot—Inferences From Geodynamic Models , Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth (2020)
• Evolving paleotopography and lithospheric flexure of the Pyrenean Orogen from 3D flexural modeling and basin analysis , Earth and Planetary Science Letters (2019)
• Extensional models for the development of passive‐margin salt basins, with application to the Gulf of Mexico , Basin Research (2018)
• Testing fault growth models with low-temperature thermochronology in the northwest Basin and Range, USA , Tectonics (2016)

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