Richard A. Schweickert

0ffice: 363 Laxalt Mineral Research
Lab: 377 Laxalt Mineral Research
University of Nevada , Reno
Phone: (775) 784-6901
Fax: (775) 784-1833

E-mail: richschwunr.edu

Director: Summer Geology Field Camp


Areas of Interest: Structure, Tectonics, Stratigraphy, and Regional Geology

Education:
Ph.D., Geology, 1972, Stanford University, Stanford, California
B.S. Geology, 1967, Stanford University, Stanford, California

Current Research:

Rich Schweickert received his B.S. (1967) and Ph.D. (1972) from Stanford University and has been at the University of Nevada since 1982. His early career (1972-1981) was spent at Columbia University and Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory, where he taught courses and did research in California, Newfoundland, Corsica, Italy, and the Antarctic. His teaching and research are now on Cordilleran tectonics, regional geology, structural geology and stratigraphy, with special emphasis on crustal evolution of the Sierra Nevada region.

Major discoveries of work by Schweickert and his students since the early 80 ’ s include: regional thrust faults in the eastern Sierra Nevada; a Triassic caldera near Tioga Pass, Yosemite National Park; a major syn-batholithic dextral strike-slip fault system with over 400 km displacement; Paleozoic and Mesozoic subduction complexes and island arcs in the Sierra Nevada region; active faults, megalandslides, and past tsunamis in the Lake Tahoe basin.

His ongoing research includes three themes:

• Studies of crustal evolution of the eastern Sierra Nevada, involving structure and stratigraphy of the Saddlebag Lake pendant and adjacent areas, Yosemite National Park; and geometry, timing, and processes of intrusion of granitic plutons.
• Studies of the Sierra Nevada-Great Basin boundary zone, including volcanic and Quaternary stratigraphy, active faults, landslides, and tsunamis in the Lake Tahoe basin, involving detailed structural mapping, trenching, drilling, soil gas profiling. Development of a new digital geologic map of the Lake Tahoe basin, is underway, in cooperation with the USGS-Reno field office.
• Studies of tectonically active range-margin fault systems in northern Nevada, and their potential to host high-temperature geothermal systems.

Past Graduate Students:

I currently have five graduate students, all of whom are fully supported by external grants:

• Ph.D ’ s. Robert Jacobi, Nicholas Bogen, Gary Girty, Richard Hanson, Charles Merguerian, Mary Lahren, Reid Fisher, David Greene
• M.S. Mark Hallee, Brien Laird, Mark Thiesse, Carol Mount, Nancy Merritt, Rachelle Boskie, Alex Karim, Robert Strobel, Fredy Marino, James McCaughey

Current Graduate Students:

• Chris Lopez, MS candidate: Triassic and Lower Jurassic stratigraphy of selected localities in the Snow Lake block, California, and implications for large-scale synbatholithic faulting.
• Jessica Muehlberg, MS candidate: Geology and geophysics of the Tahoe City sub-basin: Implications for former lake levels and seismic hazard.

Selected Publications:

• Schweickert, R.A. , and Lahren, M.M., 1990, Speculative reconstruction of a major Early Cretaceous(?) dextral fault zone in the Sierra Nevada : Implications for Paleozoic and Mesozoic orogenesis in the western United States : Tectonics, v. 9, p. 1609-1629
• Lahren, M.M., Schweickert, R.A., Mattinson, J.M., and Walker, J.D., 1990, Evidence of uppermost Proterozoic to Lower Cambrian miogeoclinal rocks and the Mojave-Snow Lake fault: Snow Lake pendant, central Sierra Nevada, California: Tectonics, v. 9, p. 1585-1608.
• Greene, D.C., Schweickert, R.A., and Stevens, C.H., 1997, Roberts Mountains allochthon and the western margin of the Cordilleran miogeocline in the Northern Ritter Range pendant, eastern Sierra Nevada, California: Geol. Soc. America Bull., v. 109, p. 1294-1305.
• Schweickert, R.A., Lahren, M.M., Karlin, R., Smith, K., and Howle, J., 2000., Lake Tahoe active faults, landslides, and tsunamis, in Lageson, D.R., Peters, S.G., and Lahren, M.M., eds., Great Basin and Sierra Nevada: Boulder, Colorado, Geological Society of America Field Guide 2, p. 1-22.
• Schweickert, R.A., Lahren, M.M., Smith, K.D., and Howle, J.F., 2004, Transtensional deformation in the Lake Tahoe region, California and Nevada: Tectonophysics Special Volume on Ophiolites and Continental margins of the Circumpacific Region, invited paper.