James Gregory "Greg" Hirth (born June 4, 1963) is an American geophysicist, specializing in tectonophysics.[1][2] He is known for his experiments in rock deformation and his applications of rheology in development of models for tectonophysics.[3]
Biography
Greg Hirth as a boy and teenager enjoyed the outdoors in the woods of Ohio and the mountains of Colorado.[4] He graduated in 1985 with a B.S. in geological sciences from Indiana University. At Brown University, he graduated in geological sciences with a master's degree in 1987 and a Ph.D. in 1991. His Ph.D. thesis was supervised by Jan Tullis. For the academic year 1991–1992, Hirth was a postdoc in the department of geology and geophysics at the University of Minnesota. There his supervisor was David L. Kohlstedt. In the department of geology and geophysics of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), Hirth was a postdoc in 1993, an assistant scientist from 1994 to 1998, and an associate scientist from 1998 to 2007 (with tenure from 2001). In the department of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences of Brown University, he was from 2007 to 2009 an associate professor and was appointed in 2010 to a full professorship, which he currently holds. From 2015 to 2020 he chaired his department. He has held visiting positions at Caltech (fall 1999), France's University of Montpellier (spring 2007), and Rice University (spring 2011).[2]
Hirth's 1996 paper Water in the oceanic upper mantle: Implications for rheology, melt extraction and the evolution of the lithosphere, co-authored with David L. Kohlstedt,[8] has been cited more than 1750 times. Hirth is the author or co-author of more than 25 articles that have been cite more than 100 time each.[3] He has done research on earthquakes,[9][10][11][12] effects of melt and creep in the mantle on the rheology of the aggregate,[13][14][15] and the effects of grain size evolution on geophysical processes.[16][17][18] He and his colleagues have used experimental and theoretical rheology in constructing models of the oceanic lithosphere,[19][20] the Iceland hotspot[21] and several other geophysical phenomena.[3]
His father, John Price Hirth, was elected in 1974 a member of the National Academy of Engineering and in 1994 a member of the National Academy of Sciences.[23][24] Greg Hirth married Ann E. Mulligan, whom he met at Brown University.[4] She graduated in 1988 from Brown University with an A.B. in geological sciences and in 1999 from the University of Connecticut with a Ph.D. in environmental engineering. She is a researcher employed at WHOI's Marine Policy Center.[25]
Selected publications
Articles
Hirth, Greg; Tullis, Jan (1989). "The effects of pressure and porosity on the micromechanics of the brittle-ductile transition in quartzite". Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth. 94 (B12): 17825–17838. Bibcode:1989JGR....9417825H. doi:10.1029/JB094iB12p17825.
Kelemen, P. B.; Hirth, G.; Shimizu, N.; Spiegelman, M.; Dick, H. J. (1997). "A review of melt migration processes in the adiabatically upwelling mantle beneath oceanic spreading ridges". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences. 355 (1723): 283–318. Bibcode:1997RSPTA.355..283K. doi:10.1098/rsta.1997.0010. S2CID140727722.
Hirth, Greg; Teyssier, Christian; Dunlap, James W. (2001). "An evaluation of quartzite flow laws based on comparisons between experimentally and naturally deformed rocks". International Journal of Earth Sciences. 90 (1): 77–87. Bibcode:2001IJEaS..90...77H. doi:10.1007/s005310000152. S2CID130482805.
Behn, Mark D.; Kelemen, Peter B.; Hirth, Greg; Hacker, Bradley R.; Massonne, Hans-Joachim (2011). "Diapirs as the source of the sediment signature in arc lavas". Nature Geoscience. 4 (9): 641–646. Bibcode:2011NatGe...4..641B. doi:10.1038/ngeo1214. hdl:1912/4826. (See diapir.)
Kelemen, Peter B.; Hirth, Greg (2012). "Reaction-driven cracking during retrograde metamorphism: Olivine hydration and carbonation". Earth and Planetary Science Letters. 345–348: 81–89. Bibcode:2012E&PSL.345...81K. doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2012.06.018.
^Mehl, Luc; Hacker, Bradley R.; Hirth, Greg; Kelemen, Peter B. (2003). "Arc-parallel flow within the mantle wedge: Evidence from the accreted Talkeetna arc, south central Alaska". Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth. 108 (B8): 2375. Bibcode:2003JGRB..108.2375M. doi:10.1029/2002JB002233.
^Hirth, Greg; Kohlstedt, David L. (1996). "Water in the oceanic upper mantle: Implications for rheology, melt extraction and the evolution of the lithosphere". Earth and Planetary Science Letters. 144 (1–2): 93–108. Bibcode:1996E&PSL.144...93H. doi:10.1016/0012-821X(96)00154-9.
^Hirth, Greg; Kohlstedt, David L. (1995). "Experimental constraints on the dynamics of the partially molten upper mantle: 2. Deformation in the dislocation creep regime". Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth. 100 (B8): 15441–15449. Bibcode:1995JGR...10015441H. doi:10.1029/95JB01292.
^Behn, Mark D.; Hirth, Greg; Elsenbeck Ii, James R. (2009). "Implications of grain size evolution on the seismic structure of the oceanic upper mantle". Earth and Planetary Science Letters. 282 (1–4): 178–189. Bibcode:2009E&PSL.282..178B. doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2009.03.014. hdl:1912/2859.
^Jaroslow, G.E.; Hirth, G.; Dick, H.J.B. (1996). "Abyssal peridotite mylonites: Implications for grain-size sensitive flow and strain localization in the oceanic lithosphere". Tectonophysics. 256 (1–4): 17–37. Bibcode:1996Tectp.256...17J. doi:10.1016/0040-1951(95)00163-8.