Nicolas Roberts

Nick Roberts is a structural geologist who investigates the deformation of continental crust throughout Earth’s history. He synthesizes map-scale, outcrop-scale and microscale observations to quantify how rocks in different tectonic settings accommodated crustal scale deformation. Roberts’ research on cryptic structures in ancient crust in Western Australia seeks to illuminate the conditions and processes under which some of Earth’s earliest continents formed and deformed. His research on highly sheared zones within the basement rock of the Grand Canyon, Ariz., seeks to provide constraints on the rheology, or strength, of the middle crust in active mountain belts. Roberts’ research includes extensive fieldwork as well as laboratory data collection such as anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility, microstructural analysis, and electron backscatter diffraction.

Recent Courses Taught

Our Interconnected Earth
Structural Geology and Tectonics

Select Publications

• Roberts, N. M., and Tikoff, B. (2021 ). Internal structure of the Paleoarchean Mt Edgar dome, Pilbara Craton, Western Australia. Precambrian Research, 358, 106163. 
• Salerno, R., Vervoort, J., Fisher, C., Kemp, A., and Roberts, N. M. (2021 ). The coupled Hf-Nd isotope record of the early Earth in the Pilbara Craton. Earth and Planetary Science Let­ters, 572, 117139. 
• Roberts, N. M., Tikoff, B., Davis, J. R. and Stetson-Lee, T. (2019), The utility of statistical analy­sis in structural geology. Journal of Structural Geology, 125, 64-73. 
• Tikoff, B., Newman, J., Chatzaras, V., and Roberts, N. M. (2019), Big data in microstructure analysis: Building a universal orientation system for thin sections. Journal of Structural Geology, 125, 226-234. 

Appointed to the Faculty

Educational Background

Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison
B.A., Carleton College