Professor and Department Head
Sedimentation and Tectonics
Office Phone: 307-766-2245
Fax Phone: (307) 766-6679
P.O. Box 3006
Laramie, Wyoming 82071-3006
Office: GE 311B
Email: heller@uwyo.edu
Education
Geology, PhD, University of Arizona, 1983
Geology, MS, Western Washington University, 1978
Geology, BS, State University of New York, 1974
My current funded research projects include:
- Evaluating Channel Stacking Patterns in Ancient Fluvial Systems.
- We are developing an approach to looking at the largest scale of channel stacking patterns in ancient alluvial systems. The approach must remove the statistical noise associated with avulsion process, and must take into account other aspects of channel flow (eg. discharge, sediment flux) in order to evaluate the importance of allocyclic vs. autocyclic controls on alluvial architecture. Along with a colleague at the University of Minnesota, we are looking at the role of inherited topography in the development of alluvial architecture. Study areas include various Mesozoic and Cenozoic units in the Rocky Mountains including: east central Utah, Wyoming and western Colorado. Techniques include photomosaic interpretation, LIDAR imaging, subsurface observations and section measuring. This work involves two graduate students working with me at present.
- Controls on River Avulsion and Channel Pattern in Modern and Ancient Alluvial Systems.
- Avulsion is an example of "emergent phenomena" that happens only on certain length scales in river systems. With colleagues on campus as well as at the University of Texas, my students and I are using modern rivers as well as geometries preserved in ancient systems to better understand the overall controls on river avulsion and how channel patterns form under a variety of conditions. Study areas at present include: Cretaceous/Tertiary fluvial units in Wyoming, Spain, and modern rivers in Wyoming and eastern Nebraska.
- Experimental Stratigraphy
-I am fortunate to be associated with a group of geologists and engineers working on physical models of sedimentation. The experimental work is centered out of the University of Minnesota at the St. Anthony Falls Laboratory. "Jurassic Tank" is a large flume (~7x14 m) with a subsiding floor in which we can create stratigraphy under different transport and subsidence conditions and geometries. Student involvement includes developing field studies in areas that are natural analoges to experimental results. This helps us understand how to scale the experiments to mimic aspects of nature.
Publications
Links to Publications in PDF format
Jones, M., Heller, P.L., Roca, E., Garcés, M., and Cabrera, L., 2004, Time lag of syntectonic sedimentation across an alluvial basin: Theory and example from the Ebro Basin, Spain: Basin Research, v. 16, p. 489-506.
McMillan, M.E., Heller, P.L., and Wing, S.L., 2006, History and causes of post-Laramide relief in the Rocky Mountain orogenic plateau: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v.118, p. 393-405.
Heller, P.L., Dueker, K., and McMillan, M.E., 2003, Post-Paleozoic Alluvial Gravel Transport as evidence of continental tilting in the U.S. Cordillera, Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 115, no. 9, p. 1122-1132.
Liu, S., Heller, P.L., Zhang, G., 2003, Mesozoic basin development and tectonic evolution of the Dabieshan orogenic belt, central China: Tectonics, v. 22, no. 4, 10.1029/2002TC001390
McMillan, M.E., Angevine, C.L., and Heller, P.L., 2002, Postdepositional tilt of the Miocene-Pliocene Ogallala Group on the western Great Plains: evidence of late Cenozoic uplift of the Rocky Mountains: Geology, v. 30, no. 1, p. 63-66.
Courses
GEOL1200 - Historical Geology
GEOL2100 - Stratigraphy and Sedimentation
GEOL4420 - Sedimentary Petrology
GEOL5212 - Sedimentary Seminar
GEOL5300 - Sedimentary Basins
Current Graduate Students
Research Statement
My research interests revolve around the study of sedimentary response to tectonic, climatic and sea level changes over various time scales. If we hope to interpret such events as the tectonic timing of mountain belts, the history of eustasy or climate change, we must first understand how these events influence sedimentary basin development and deposition. Unfortunately, studies of modern systems, while showing us active depositional processes, can not be simply scaled up to explain the evolution of stratigraphy that took millions of years to develop. Sedimentary basins are more than the simple addition of many short-term events. Over long time periods, basin stratigraphy is primarily controlled by rates of change of sediment supply, basin subsidence and absolute sea level. However, over short times scales basin subsidence becomes less important, and changes in discharge (for rivers) and autocyclic and chaotic events (river avulsion, storms, climate) have stronger influence. Since these factors can all be changing simultaneously, unique interpretation of stratigraphy is, at best, not trivial.
My approach to basin analysis integrates various methods to study stratigraphy that developed over short, medium and long time scales. While most of my work involves outcrop-scale study, I am also involved in analyzing strata developed on very large (e.g. seismic interpretation of structural basins) and very small scales. My involvement in the development of a small-scale experimental basin provides a means to analyze stratigraphic development under precisely controlled conditions of subsidence, sediment supply and sea level change. Most student projects are centered around field studies designed to test clearly defined hypotheses concerning tectonic (eustatic, climatic)/sedimentary interactions. I stress breadth of training for geology graduate students including a fundamental understanding of subsidence mechanisms, physical transport processes, sedimentary petrology, and the plate tectonic evolution of mountain belts and continental margins.
At present I have active projects on:
- Late Cenozoic uplift, erosion, and sediment redistribution in the Rocky Mountains and Colorado Plateau.
- Controls on river avulsion and alluvial stacking patterns with examples from the Colorado Plateau and Wyoming.
- Developing methodologies for quantitative reconstruction of ancient river systems, especially paleoslope.
- Tectonic-sedimentary interactions along the active margin of the Tibetan Plateau in China.
- The timing and distribution of foreland basin gravels in Spain and the U.S. Western Interior seaway.
- Mechanisms controlling development of anastomosed patterns on modern rivers.
