Station ANTS

Questions for D. Sarah Stamps

How did you become a scientist/engineer?

When I was in third grade, my teacher informed us that rainforests were in danger of being destroyed, and someone needed to save them! Ever since then, I have wanted to be an earth scientist and contribute to making the planet a better place. Later on, in high school, I was introduced to geology and geophysics at the University of Missouri, Rolla, called the Jackling Institute. After scientists showed us an image of a fault deep within the Earth, I was completely hooked on geophysics.

What is your job like?

I rotate between several major tasks: planning GPS campaigns, modeling GPS data or new geodynamic models that aim to explain the GPS data, creating presentation materials for conferences, building new collaborations and projects by email and Skype, working with colleagues on existing projects, working with students to guide their development as scientists, writing papers, writing proposals, and promoting earth science education.

What are you hoping to learn from your research?

My aim is to better understand plate boundary formation.

Plate Boundary Formation in Madagascar

Almost a billion years ago Madagascar was two separate parts. East Madagascar was attached to a continent called East Gondwanaland and West Madagascar was attached to a continent called West Gondwanaland. Over time the two continents joined forming the landmass we know as Madagascar (Figure 1). The place where they joined - in central Madagascar - is known as a suture. Sutures are weaker than the surrounding land and can become a place where continents break apart.

Currently, the suture in central Madagascar has lots of small earthquakes (Figure 2). The suture also has a volcano and hot springs, which means there is hot material beneath the island. This hot material can also cause weakening in the suture. Since the suture has active tectonic processes, I hypothesize that central Madagascar is forming a new plate boundary. To test this hypothesis I work with scientists in Madagascar to install GPS instruments and measure how Madagascar is moving (Figure 3).