Robert Moucha, associate professor and director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S), has been awarded a prestigious Fulbright fellowship to conduct research and teach at Charles University and the Institute of Geophysics at the Czech Academy of Sciences, in the Czech Republic.

Moucha’s area of research encompasses geodynamic modeling using high-level computation to simulate what’s going on deep below the surface of the Earth and how it affects landscape evolution. Landscape evolution modeling encompasses how the surface changes in response to tectonics and how it interacts with the climate. He has thus far focused much of his research on continental rifting: “These are areas where the continents are being pulled apart by tectonic forces and forces from deep within the mantle,” he says. “As they’re being pulled apart, the crust is being thinned and can form basins.”

These basins can become lakes, trapping sediment eroded from nearby mountains that has the potential to trap carbon dioxide that comes from deep within the Earth, which could be released during earthquakes, for example, becoming a natural hazard; volcanic activity and landslides are also risks in these tectonically active regions. But there are positives to basins as well. “Because these rifts have a thinned crust, there can be areas of high heat flow from deep within the Earth, which can be a source of geothermal energy,” says Moucha.

The Fulbright will support Moucha’s research in the Czech Republic, a region that is home to the European Cenozoic rift system that formed tens of millions of years ago, specifically the Eger Rift, located in the northwestern portion of Czech Republic. “Even though it’s located in the interior of the continent, and is no longer rifting, it’s very seismically active,” says Moucha. The region is also home to high carbon-dioxide degassing, a concern for its contribution to the greenhouse effect and climate change. He will be working with the researchers and scientists at the Institute of Geophysics of the Czech Academy of Sciences as well as Charles University.

Map of the Eger Rift, located in the northwestern portion of the Czech Republic.

“My proposed research is to try to understand how the Cenozoic rift system and the Eger Rift developed,” says Moucha, “looking specifically at hypotheses that the rift was helped in its formation by inherited structures.” The so-called inherited structures are the scars in the earth’s crust from past tectonic events, where faults developed. “I will also be looking at how a mantle plume, large-scale hot rock from deep within the Earth that rises towards the surface, can increase the temperature, causing melting and weakening the lithosphere. There may be some underlying deep mantle dynamics that played a role in the development of this rift, that may continue to still affect this area.”

Moucha will be teaching a course in the geodynamics of basins while at Charles University, integrating the research he will be conducting with his expertise in numerical simulations of continental rifting and landscape evolution. He will accompany students into the field, as well, so that they can get a sense of the different basins and Earth structures. This is a welcome departure for Moucha.

“I wouldn’t call myself a field geologist at all,” he says. “I’m a geodynamicist. Being in a computer lab is what I like most. But we are modeling the natural systems, so it does help to get out and see what we are modeling.”

He and his students will benefit from the experts on the ground in the Czech Republic, who have studied the local tectonics for decades. “To be able to interact daily with these experts is something that I’m looking forward to,” says Moucha.

Once back in Syracuse, Moucha hopes this experience will help him design courses that combine geodynamics with a field component to help students get a better, full picture of the Earth’s evolution and processes. “I want to emphasize to students that there’s a lot more to the field of geodynamics than just numerical modeling. Observations are very important for verifying models.”

Moucha’s time in the Czech Republic will also be a sort of homecoming for him. Born in Prague, he remembers exploring the rock garden hosting a variety of rocks from different regions of the Czech Republic at the Institute of Geophysics as a child when he would visit his grandparents, who lived just a few blocks away. Now he will be back, in a sense, to explore rocks on a much more massive scale.