Keller has joined other scientists in focusing her research on the 30-year-old idea first championed by Virginia Tech geologist Dewey McLean that Deccan
volcanism was the root of the Cretaceous mass extinction.
One of the paradoxical inferences, however, is that there is a type of subduction initiation that does not cause compression of the upper plate, but, rather, extension and
volcanism.
In March of 2013, a conference was held at the Natural History Museum of London in which 150 experts, researchers and students in geology, geophysics, geochemistry, volcanology, sedimentology, paleontology and astronomy, discussed the ways in which our burgeoning understanding of
volcanism and space science can help to explain the causes and impacts of the five major extinctions in EarthAEs history.
The studies collected here represent the most recent research into
volcanism, the relationship between geology and biodiversity and ocean island formation.
The mission has already found clues pointing to
volcanism on geologically recent timescales, within the last few hundreds of thousands to millions of years.
The question of Mercury
volcanism remained open until recent results from NASA's Messenger spacecraft.
A yearlong effort to understand the planet's
volcanism, core, magnetic field and other features got under way April 4, when the craft's suite of seven instruments began regularly beaming data to Earth.
Why does the Peru-Chile Trench, which extends along almost the entire west coast of South America, have only three segments of
volcanism? How deep can researchers currently go in simulations of the earth's mantle?
He covers the origin of the Solar System, planets and their orbits, planetary differentiation, magnetic fields, planetary atmospheres, the geological development of the inner planets,
volcanism within the inner Solar System, Earth's moon, the outer planets, moons of Jupiter and Saturn, and moons of Uranus and Neptune.