Yiming Zhang

I am a Postdoctoral Associate at the Institute for Rock Magnetism at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

I want to be a geologist with expertise in paleomagnetism, rock magnetism, and U-Pb geochronology. I have been integrating rock magnetic, paleomagnetic, geochronologic and thermochronologic data to study ancient Earth magmatism, paleogeography, and the evolution of Earth’s magnetic field and interior.

I am a contributor for the PmagPy software package. I am a contributor for the RockmagPy module that is to be added to the PmagPy package. I am also working on a Python data reduction software for processing elemental concentration and isotope ratio data developed with LA-ICPMS.

I have conducted a total of 25 weeks of field work. My field areas include the Lake Superior Region (MN, MI, WI) where I study igneous and sedimentary rocks associated with the ca. 1109-1083 Ma North American Midcontinent Rift; the ca. 1.08 Ga Pikes Peak granite in Colorado; the ca. 1.1 Ga Southwest Large Igneous Province (Death Valley, CA, Grand Canyon, AZ); the Grenville orogen (Adirondack Mountains, NY, Bancroft area, ON, Lac Saint Jean and Saint Urbain area, Quebec) where I study the exhumation history and associated paleogeographic records using metamorphic rocks; the late Mesozoic volcanics in southwestern Montana where I study volcanism associated with the subduction of the Farallon plate and deformation associated with the development of the Laramide orogeny; and the Middle East (Oman, Egypt) where I use intrusive rocks to constrain the paleogeography of the Arabian-Nubian Shield in association with the onset and development of Snowball Earth events.