You are here: Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences / Our staff / Vincent C H Tong / Impact cratering, helioseismology and marine geophysics
Document Actions

I apply geophysical imaging techniques to a number of disciplines, and here are some of the research areas that I have been involved in:

Impact cratering

We were pumping electricity into the ground in central Brazil. What for?

Trying to understand how the impact crater was formed when that large meteorite hit the Earth more than 240 million years ago. We were also looking for some minute changes in gravity as a result of this impact.

Guess what? We have found some exciting signals. Really good for understanding these once-in-a-while catastrophic events! Big craters are found on solid planetary bodies in the Solar System, too. So this work is very relevant to planetary sciences.

Image of research group in Brazil

Helioseismology

Do we do astronomy only at night?

In fact, it's fun to use telescopes to do astronomy in broad daylight. After all, our star is shining during the day... And we can apply geophysical techniques to the study of our Sun, too.

Image of telescope at Big Bear Solar Observatory, California

 

Marine geophysics

The Sun was setting on the East Pacific, and we were on a research vessel collecting seismic data...

We were trying to find out about how the underwater volcanoes between two big tectonic plates might evolve.

We use similar seismic techniques to study underwater volcanoes and sunspots. Except that we don't do field trips on the Sun. Geophysical research has become very interdisciplinary...

Image of research vessel collecting seismic data