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Eberly College of Arts & Sciences Department of Geology and Geography
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Man with short curly hair and a greying beard and mustache smiles slightly as he works on layers of rock strata

Jaime Toro

Professor of Geology

Contact

jtoro@wvu.edu

Categorized As

Role: Faculty,
Focus or Research Area: Geology,

“In the last few summers I have been doing field work along the rivers that drain Alaska’s Brooks Range. With my students and collaborators, we map and sample for geochronology, thermochronology and paleothermometry in order to unravel the history of the assembly of Northern Alaska.”

Structural Geology & Tectonics — I specialize in the tectonic evolution of the Arctic with focus in Northern Alaska and Northeastern Russia. I enjoy doing geological field work in the remote northern wilderness. The tools I use include structural analysis, U/Pb geochronology, thermochronology and geophysics. Recently, I have been investigating the evolution of the Koyukuk Basin of Alaska in collaboration with geologists from Stockholm University. I have also lead projects on the structure and evolution of the Appalachian fold-and-thrust-belt and the Appalachian basin.

Education

  • B.S. Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, 1985
  • M.S. Geology, University of Arizona, 1989
  • Ph.D. Geology, Stanford University, 1998

Research

Recently I have been investigating the Paleozoic and Mesozoic tectonic evolution of Northern Alaska and the Arctic region in general. I enjoy exploring the geology of the remote northern mountain belts. In the last few summers I have been doing field work along the rivers that drain Alaska’s Brooks Range. With my students and collaborators, we map and sample for geochronology, thermochronology and paleothermometry in order to unravel the history of the assembly of Northern Alaska. I have also lead projects on the structure and evolution of the Appalachian fold-and-thrust-belt and the Appalachian basin. I am starting a new project in collaboration with Stockholm University and the USGS to study the evolution of the Koyukuk basin, located south of the Brooks Range.

Teaching

  • GEOL 341: Structural Geology
  • GEOL 373: Petroleum Geology
  • GEOL 404: Field Camp
  • GEOL 543: Tectonics
  • GEOL 645: Basin Analysis

Current and ongoing research projects

  • Evolution of the Koyukuk Basin, Alaska
  • Application of Raman spectroscopy of organic matter to basin evolution
  • U-Th/He thermochronology of the southern Brooks Range
  • Tectonic evolution of the Arctic

Representative papers

  1. Seminara, S., Pease, V., Toro, J, Omma, J. Heavy Mineral Analysis of the NE Yukon-Koyukuk Basin Sandstones, Alaska, In Review, Geology, Geochemistry, Geophysics
  2. Akinin, V. V., Miller, E. L., Toro, J., Prokopiev, A. V., Gottlieb, E. S., Pearcey, S., ... & Trunilina, V. A. 2020,  Episodicity and the dance of late Mesozoic magmatism and deformation along the northern circum-Pacific margin: NE Russia to the Cordillera. Earth-Science Reviews, 208, 103272. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2020.103272
  3. Robinson, F. A., Toro, J., & Pease, V. 2019, U-Pb and oxygen isotope characteristics of Timanian-and Caledonian-age detrital zircons from the Brooks Range, Arctic Alaska, USA. Bulletin, 131(9-10), 1459-1479.
  4. 2016, Toro J., E.L. Miller , A.V. Prokopiev, X. Zhang & R. Veselovskiy, Mesozoic Orogens of the Arctic from Novaya Zemlya to Alaska, Journal of the Geological Society, doi:10.1144/jgs2016-083
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