St. Elias Erosion/tectonics Project (STEEP)
Funding agency: National Science Foundation, multiple awards

This is a multi-disciplinary study to address the evolution of the highest coastal mountain range on Earth - the St. Elias Mountains of southern Alaska and northwestern Canada. This orogen has developed over the past few million years as the Yakutat block, a continental-oceanic terrane, has attempted subduction beneath the eastern end of the Aleutian arc-trench system.

SGER: Seismic Waveform Inversion Stdy of the Layer 2A/2B Boundary in Young Oceanic Crust
Funding agency: National Science Foundation, Award No. OCE 0853523

The waveform inversion approach proposed by Christeson holds the possibility of resolving the Layer 2A/2B seismic structure, and hence producing a breakthrough in this area of study after decades of frustration. If successful, the technique can be applied to a great deal of existing seismic data from a variety of localities, particularly in the Pacific. The primary broader impact of this SGER will be the introduction of the wave-field inversion technique to marine seismic data and its interpretation to a variety of problems.