Speaker: Dr. Andrew Katumwehe, Professor of Geophysics and Tectonics at the Kimbell School of Geosciences at MSU

Topic: Dry Rifting: An Example of the Western Branch or the East African Rift System

Abstract: An Example of the Western Branch of the East African Rift System Continental rifting plays a key role in global tectonics, growth and evolution of continental lithosphere and source of hydrocarbon reservoirs. Thanks to recent geophysical, geodetic, geological and numerical studies, we now have better understanding of mechanisms driving the initiation of magma-rich rift systems. Numerical models provide insights into how a continental rift system with both magma-rich and magma-starved branches could develop simultaneously from a single mantle plume. In this model a broad plume head impinges beneath one side of a craton, preferentially channeling more melt to this side, leaving the other side with a limited magma supply. Despite these insights, much remains to be understood of the dynamic processes occurring within the Earth’s crust and upper mantle that drive the development of amagmatic and magma-poor rifts. We do not know how strain is localized in the lithosphere and the relative roles that distantly-sourced magma and fluids play in driving magma-poor rifting. Although pre-existing structures within the Precambrian orogenic belts are suggested to exert a major influence on the localization of the rifts, however how these structures reactivate and modulate rift structures remains poorly understood.

Bio: Dr. Katumwehe Received a B.S (Honors) degree in Geology in 1995 from Makerere University-Kampala, M.S. in Geophysics in 2000 from ITC-Delft, the Netherlands, and his Ph.D. in Geology in 2016 from the Boone Pickens School of Geology, Oklahoma State University. His Doctoral Dissertation was on The Role of Pre-existing Precambrian Structures in Rift Evolution, Propagation and Termination – The Albertine-Rhino Graben, East Africa

Dr. Katumwhehe has been an Assistant Professor of the Kimbell School of Geosciences, Robert L. Bolin Graduate School of Petroleum Geology at Midwestern State University since August of 2018. Dr. Katumwhehe is a member of numerous professional organisations including American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Geological Society of America, American Geophysical Union, Society of Exploration Geophysicists, and many others as well as the North Texas Geological Society