Xiaoting Lou

Xiaoting Lou is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Earth and Planetery Sciences studying the structure, composition and evolution of the Earth's mantle using seismic imaging and mineral physics data from high-pressure laboratory experiments. He uses a novel facility called USArray, which is a 400-seismometer network that migrates through the United States, providing closely spaced recordings of distant and continental earthquakes on an unprecedented scale. Xiaoting developed two notable python-based tools, one that calculates seismic velocities for a variety of laboratory-derived mineral parameters, including water content, and another that allows him to interact with and analyze the enormous volume of USArray data in an efficient manner. His analyses confirm that the Earth's upper mantle beneath the United States is very heterogeneous, primarily as a cause of the uneven distribution of heat beneath North America. In addition, Xiaoting's analyses show that, contrary to prevailing views, this heterogeneity is not confined to the western United States with its earthquakes, volcanoes, and mountains, but is equally strong in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains, despite the geologically uneventful state it has been in for the past one billion years. He works with Prof. Suzan van der Lee and Prof. Steven Jacobsen.