Biography
Personal Webpage: https://wordpress.nmsu.edu/nmcmilla/
BS Geology, New Mexico State University, 1979
BA Russian, New Mexico State University, 1979
PhD Geology, Southern Methodist University, 1986
Note to potential graduate students:
I am accepting new graduate students for 2021-2022. I have three projects in mind.
- Combining LA-ICP-MS detrital zircon ages with LIBS analyses of the same zircon crystals to refine the DZ sediment source models. By adding compositional information to the U-Pb ages, LIBS data will be able to define compositional groups within each age group and indicate different sources of similar age
- Examining zoned minerals in igneous rocks by comparing LIBS spectra of each zone with multivariate analysis. Imagine–thinking about magmatic processes with the entire periodic table at once!
- Explore the potential to identify which suite of detrital minerals crystallized from the same pluton. Imagine a drainage system in which three different plutons are exposed. Each pluton contributes zircon, apatite, and titanite to the detritus. Is it possible to determine out which detrital zircon, apatite, and titanite crystallized in the same pluton?
- Please contact me if you are interested!
Our latest paper on mineral provenance was just published online in a Special Issue of Minerals on Analytical Tools to Constrain the Origin of Minerals. You can access it here.
*Associate of the Order of Julian of Norwich. Click here for more information.
