Meg Thompson

During more than 30 years at Wellesley, I taught and advised undergraduate women and involved them in my research on rock sequences around Boston that form the southernmost element in the "West Avalonian" tectonic belt stretching northward to the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland. 

Since then, the scope of my ongoing research has broadened through collaborative efforts with American and Canadian colleagues.  Current focal points are Ediacaran tectonostratigraphic affinities with terranes in mainland Nova Scotia as sxwell as paleogeographic origins and drift history of these terranes en route to collision with eastern North America.  Ongoing high precision U-Pb zircon geochronology, combined with available Nd and Hf isotopic signatures from southeastern New England magmatic assemblages are consistent with crustal sources on the Timanide margin of Baltica.

Deep drilling related to the tunnel project has now transected rock sequences unknown from surface exposures. Future sampling and analysis of these sequences will reveal new chapters in the geological history of the southeastern New England Avalon terrane.