Yiming Zhang

I am a Ph.D. candidate at the UC Berkeley Department of Earth and Planetary Science. After a short postdoc at UC Berkeley in summer 2024, I will join the Institute for Rock Magnetism at the Univeristy of Minnesota Twin Cities as a postdoc starting fall 2024.

My research primarily uses field observations, laboratory experiments, and statistical methods to understand Earth history. In particular, I integrate rock magnetic, paleomagnetic, geochronologic and thermochronologic data to understand ancient Earth magmatism, reconstruct paleogeography, and study the evolution of Earth’s magnetic field and interior.

I have conducted a total of 22 weeks of original field work since the beginning of my Ph.D. course. 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; and the Middle East (Oman) where I study the Tonian rocks to constrain the paleogeography of the Arabian-Nubian Shield before the onset of the Snowball Earth.

For my paleomagnetism research, I conduct experiments at the UC Berkeley Paleomagnetism Lab which has a 2G DC-SQUID rock magnetometer and a quantum diamond microscope. In summer 2022, I attended the rock magnetism summer school at the Institute for Rock Magnetism at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities.

I also use a suite of techniques and instruments including X-ray powder diffraction for bulk compositional analysis, making custom thin sections for optical petrography, using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) to collect compositional (EDS) and crystal orientation (EBSD) information of minerals, and performing heavy mineral separation to obtain accessory minerals for geochronology and thermochronology.