Gavin G. Piccione

Gavin G. Piccione

Ph.D Candidate
Geochronology
UC Santa Cruz

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Pages

About me

Published:

Posts

AGU Fall Meeting 2021

Published:

I will be presenting my work at AGU Fall Meeting 2021 in session C35A. My undergraduate mentee, Sophia Pinter, and colleague Jessica Gagliardi will also be presenting their work in sessions C25C and C25E respectively. Check out the online program here, or take a look at my poster here.

outreach

Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History

I’ve been a volunteer at the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History with my colleague Graham Edwards since 2017. In this role, we’ve hosted monthly video streams, a recurring blog, and various pop-up museum exhibits. Our goals as museum volunteers are to promote Earth science literacy in the community, and to facilitate a long term partnership between the museum and the Earth and Planetary science department at UCSC.

portfolio

publications

Vein fluorite U-Pb dating demonstrates post–6.2 Ma rare-earth element mobilization associated with Rio Grande rifting

G. Piccione, E.T. Rasbury, B.A. Elliott, J.R. Kyle, S.J. Jaret, A.S. Acerbo, A. Lanzirotti, P. Northrup, K. Wooton, R.R. Parrish
Geosphere, 2019       PDF       Web

We studied a suite of hydrothermal veins that crosscut the Round Top laccolith in the Trans-Pecos magmatic province of west Texas. Using spectroscopy and LA-ICP-MS U-Pb dating of fluorite, nacrite, and calcite, we elucidate the timing and mobilization history of REE enrichment in this important REE deposit. These combined techniques allow us to identify at least two vein forming fluids that mobilized REE between 6 and 4 Ma

Ice retreat in Wilkes Basin of East Antarctica during a warm interglacial

T. Blackburn, G.H. Edwards, S. Tulaczyk, M. Scudder, G. Piccione, B. Hallet, N. McLean, J.C. Zachos, B. Cheney, & J.T. Babbe
Nature, 2020       PDF       Web

Press coverage in National Geographic
U-series isotopics of subglacial precipitates from beneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) record an open-system event ca. 400,000 years ago in the subglacial Wilkes Basin. Our data and models support ice retreat and seawater incursion during this time, suggesting that the Pleistocene EAIS was not as stable as previously assumed. These findings bear important implications for future EAIS stability in a warming climate.

research

Reconstructing Ice Sheet Evolution

Past ice sheet conditions are notoriously difficult to resolve, as the most recent ice advance razes geologic records of previous glaciations. One of my research initiatives combines geochronological and geochemical characterization of subglacial precipitates to link changes in the basal environment to ice sheet dynamics.

Antarctic Subglacial Hydrology

Subglacial hydrology has a significant effect on ice sheet motion. Yet, the interaction between ice sheet dynamics and long-term changes in the subglacial hydrologic system beneath major ice sheets are virtually unconstrained. In my research, I leverage the subglacial precipitate record to reconstruct the timescales and triggering mechanisms of floods beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet.

Hydrothermal Systems

My research helped develop the first U-Pb dating of fluorite, which we applied to hydrothermal veins related to Rio Grande rifting in the Round Top Laccolith, Texas (below). Fluorite geochronology is a powerful tool to characterize hydrothermal fluid events, ore genesis, and late stage magmatic processes.

teaching

Teaching experience 1

Undergraduate course, University 1, Department, 2014

This is a description of a teaching experience. You can use markdown like any other post.

Teaching experience 2

Workshop, University 1, Department, 2015

This is a description of a teaching experience. You can use markdown like any other post.