Professor and Head
Department of Earth Sciences
359 Wallace Building
125 Dysart Road, Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2
Phone: 204-474-7413
alfredo.camacho@umanitoba.ca
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~camacho/
Academic Background:
Ph.D., Australian National University, (1997) - Earth Sciences
Teaching
GEOL 4670 - Global Tectonics
GEOL 4910 - Advanced Field Mapping
Research Interests
I am interested in the theoretical and practical use of geochronology to establish cooling histories and the rates of tectonic processes. I study the spatial and temporal relations among shearing and fluid flow in subducting zones where rapid burial advects cold material into the mantle by addressing the following questions:
1. What are the characteristics of the fluids and where do they originate?
2. Can phase transformations occur under dry conditions or is a fluid always required?
3. What are the durations of thermal pulses associated with the advection of heat by fluids or shear heating?
4. Are exhumation histories diagnostic of the burial process; i.e., are the cooling data, typically collected from metamorphic terranes that represent rapidly subducted crust, unique?
Because I rely on the isotopic system to constrain duration, I am also interested in addressing the fundamental processes that affect isotopic ages, including: geological conditions that influence the mobility of isotopes, chemical factors that control the retentivity of minerals, diffusion mechanisms, and partitioning of isotopes between minerals.
Recent and Significant Publications
Menegon, L., Campbell, L., Mancktelow, N., Camacho, A., Wex, S., Papa, S., Toffol, G. and Pennacchioni, G. (2021). The earthquake cycle in the dry lower continental crust: insights from two deeply exhumed terranes (Musgrave Ranges, Australia, and Lofoten, Norway). Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, 379: 20190416.
Camacho, A., Lee, J.K.W., Zhao, J., Abdu, Y.A., Fayek, M. and Creaser, R.A. (2020). A test of the interlayer ionic porosity model as a measure of argon diffusivity in trioctahedral micas. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 288, 341-368.
Donnellan, N., Camacho, A., Maas, R. and Price, R.C. (2019). Mantle upwelling or plume activity on the periphery of the Warakurna LIP: evidence from the geochemistry and petrogenesis of the Alcurra Dolerite in the eastern Musgrave Province. Journal of Petrology, 60, 301-327.