Lockheed Martin, Office of Earth Sciences, NASA-Johnson Space Center

Pat Dickerson trains Space Shuttle and International Space Station crews in global tectonics and terrestrial analogues for planetary features. Those efforts include creation of electronic handbooks, as well as class and field instruction. In collaboration with New Mexico Bureau of Mines geologists and hydrogeo-logists, she co-developed a field geophysical training exercise to help prepare astronauts for exploration of Mars and Earth's Moon.

The emphasis of her geological research is on continental rifts and transforms, as well as on global patterns -- both temporal and geometric -- in tectonic geomorphology, volcanism, and sedimentation. Her comparative studies of the Rio Grande and East African rifts include geophysical and field structural analyses, as well as physical modeling. She has conducted field and other investigations in contractional orogens as well: Ouachita, Laramide (New Mexico into northern Mexico), the Argentine Precordillera, and the Norwegian Caledonides. Dickerson is a founding member of two IGCP geological task forces; she has edited seven volumes of peer-reviewed research and has published and lectured widely.

Publications/Presentations on New Mexico Geology

Dickerson, P. W., Muehlberger, W. R., and Bauer, P. W., 2000, Astronaut training in field geophysical methods: Albuquerque, Space 2000 conference proceedings, 7 p.

Reese, J. F., and Dickerson, P. W., 1999, Superposed deformational episodes in northern New Mexico: A Space Shuttle photograph tutorial and field observations (abstract): Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Program, v. 31, no. 7, p. A-245-246.

Dickerson, P. W., 1984, Structural controls on mixed carbonate-siliciclastic sedimentation: Pennsylvanian Taos Trough, New Mexico and contemporary Belize: New Mexico Geological Society, 35th Field Conference Guidebook, p. 101-105.

Baldridge, W. S., Dickerson, P. W., Riecker, R. E., and Zidek, J., editors, 1984, Rio Grande Rift, Northern New Mexico: New Mexico Geological Society, 35th Field Conference Guidebook, 379 p.

Dickerson, P. W., Hoffer, J. M., and Callender, J. F., editors, 1980, The Trans-Pecos Region: New Mexico Geological Society, 31st Field Conference Guidebook, 314 p., map.