As a doctoral student at the University of
California, Berkley, Lekic formulated higher-resolution images of the Earth’s
mantle structure, stemming from his creation of a global seismic velocity
model. Not only is the model able to give geologists a better understanding of
plate tectonics, but it also helps explain the movement of continental plates
and their evolution, Lekic said.
Nearly
2 million data lines fill the screen of Vedran Lekic’s computer every day, each
representing seismic waves that are detected from of the more than 1,700
seismic stations around the U.S.
From
this data, Lekic is creating a map that will not only cover all 48 contiguous
states, Alaska and Puerto Rico, but also dive deep into the Earth’s crust and
core.
Lekic and McDonough plan to use energy to create models of the earth
Other than his
seismology research contributions, Lekic is also a forerunner in the new
geological field of neutrino geoscience. Neutrinos
are a type of electrically neutral subatomic particle that are created during
radioactive decay or some kinds of nuclear reactions. The particle, which was
only discovered geologically in 2005 and physically detected for
the first time last year,
moves through every kind of object, McDonough said. Lekic and McDonough are attempting to harness that energy to create another way to build a model of the Earth.
“We are both interested in the energy that moves the tectonic plates and creates the magnetic shield around the planet,” geology professor William McDonough said.
“What we do is comparable to how an ultrasound let’s us see through our bodies,” Lekic said. “But this lets us see through the Earth.”
Lekic and his students use EarthScope to collect data from United States and Puerto Rico
Lekic’s research
is based on ground vibration recordings, which he and his students use to
detect the scattering of seismic waves across the North American tectonic
plate. In conjunction with the National Science Foundation’s EarthScope
Facility network, the data is collected from the 49 states and Puerto Rico and
makes up about 3.8 million square miles, Lekic said.
“EarthScope is kind of like our Apollo mission, but not as costly,” Lekic said
Lekic has already used the seismic information to investigate why and how the crust moves over the Earth’s mantle. As of now, the deepest any machine has been able to dig was about 12 kilometers into the Earth’s crust, a minuscle fracture of the roughly 6,730 kilometers it takes to get to the Earth’s core. Using the seismic information helps geologists see the shapes and sizes of the Earth’s layers.
Lekic is now one of five alumni faculty members who have received the award while at this university, and he will be given access to unrestricted funds of $875,000 over a five-year period to support his extensive research on Earth’s inner structure. “If you look at the field of those who get it and try to figure out from their research summaries and letters which are the strongest candidate, it’s a difficult task,” said Franklin Orr, chairman of the Packard Fellowship panel. “We always run out of fellowships before we run out of wonderful people to give them too.” Lekic has received several other early career awards besides the Packard Fellowship. Now that a large
fund has been granted to his work, he hopes to spend more time plotting the
seismic information in graphs and models so that he may better understand the
Earth, Lekic said