James Hammond's homepage

Dr. James Hammond

Centre for the Experimental and Theoretical Study of the Earth's Interior
Department of Earth Sciences
University of Bristol
Wills Memorial Building
Bristol, BS8 1RJ, UK.
Phone: +44 (0)117 954 5245
E-mail: j.hammond@bristol.ac.uk

Current Research

I am a Post-Doctoral research associate at the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol. My work focusses on using seismology to study plate tectonics. I have worked in many different regions, including subduction zones, rifts, volcanoes and oceanic islands. My particular interest and expertise is in the area of continental breakup, where I am working in and studying the East-Africa rift.

A recent rifting episode and eruption in the Afar region of northern Ethiopia offers a unique and timely opportunity to study the transition from continental break-up to seafloor spreading in an active setting, to document and to model the magmatic and tectonic processes within the crust and the uppermost mantle, and to determine how the crust grows at divergent plate boundaries. Using a variety of seismological techniques we will image the crust and mantle beneath Afar. This will provide us with a 3-D snapshot of the lithospheric structure, and will enable some constraints to be placed on the location of melt in this region. The presence of anisotropy beneath the rift wil be investigated enabling us to obtain information on the mechanisms of break-up involved in the rifting process

Much of my work involves significant time in the field (Read all about it)
. Recent experiments have included work in the Seychelles, Caribbean, Ethiopia and Eritrea, where we deploy seismometers to record earthquakes from all over the world. Collecting these datasets allows us to use seismic energy to image the interior of the Earth.

Breaking news!

AGU 2009 poster on the latest results from Afar

General Information

Curriculum vitae (pdf)

List of publications

Useful Links

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