Prof. Robert D van der Hilst

Professor van der Hilst engages in cross-disciplinary and collaborative research focused on understanding geological processes in Earth’s deep interior, both on a regional scale – for instance, the continental structure and evolution of Tibet, East Asia, and North America, the subduction of oceanic plates beneath western Pacific island arcs, the upper mantle transition zone beneath Hawaii, and the complex region just above the core mantle boundary beneath Asia and Central America – and on the global scale, unraveling the pattern and nature of mantle convection. The main tools he uses and develops are global reflection seismology and seismic tomography, integrated with constraints from geology, geomagnetic plate reconstructions, mineral physics, and geodynamics.

Topics van der Hilst investigates are:

(*) Seismic imaging of Earth’s deep interior structure from reservoir to planetary scales (travel time and waveform tomography; inverse scattering)
(*) Geodynamics of convergent plate boundaries and the mode of mantle convection
(*) Heterogeneity and anisotropy of Earth’s crust and upper mantle
(*) Continental evolution