Professor & Department Head
A.B., Hamilton College
M.A., University of Texas at Austin
Ph.D., MIT, 1982
Current Research
Ever since
finding spinel lherzolite xenoliths at Buell Park while working on a master's
thesis under Doug Smith, I've been fascinated with these samples of the upper
mantle. In many ways xenoliths are like meteorites in that the samples are
intriguing but the context is lacking. Consequently it is not surprising that
in collaboration with my colleague Alberto Patino-Douce my attention has turned
to meteorites. Together we are looking at phosphate relations in meteorites
(with undergraduate S. Cox) to try to understand how merrillite and apatite
coprecipitate and what this means for the relative fugacities of H2O, F and Cl
(see for example Patino Douce and Roden, 2006). I still continue to work on
xenoliths (for example, Roden et al., 2006, and the image below), but my focus
has certainly shifted from just upper
mantle xenoliths.
Left: Garnet with exsolved rutile
and diopside - from a garnet Pyroxenite
xenolith, Mir kimberlite,
Russia.
These exsolution phases require an ultrahigh
pressure origin for this xenolith, > 5 GPa (see Roden et al., 2006);
Right: garnet lherzolite in Monastery kimberlite, South
Africa
One intriguing project was just initiated this summer (2007)
with Alberto Patino Douce and involves looking at recent volcanism in the high
Puna plateau east of the Andes in northern Argentina. This plateau is a
fascinating, remote area with exotic wildlife and spectacular exposures of
young volcanic structures. Magmatic compositions range from basaltic to
rhyolitic including large, well-exposed calderas. My students are currently
working on a variety of projects inferring magmatic histories from chill zones
of diabase dikes in the southeast (S. Clark), field, mineralogic and
geochemical studies of an apparent ophiolite complex in the Piedmont (J.
Chaumba), and studying magmatic evolution of dikes associated with Spanish
Peaks (H. McGregor).
Georgiaites (tektites) and shocked quartz
from the Coastal Plain of Georgia...taken
from work by students Ed Albin and Scott Harris (Albin et al., 2000 ; Harris et al., 2004)
Recent Publications
Roden, M.F. and
N. Shimizu 2000, Trace element abundances in mantle-derived minerals which bear
on Compositional Complexities in the Lithosphere of the Colorado Plateau, Chem.
Geol. 165: 283-305
Albin, E., M. Norman, and M.F. Roden 2000, Major and trace element compositions
of georgiaites: Clues to the source of North American tektites, Meteoritics
& Planetary Science 35: 795-806
Bedell, A., M.
Roden and J. Raymer, 2001, Petrography of rocks from the Chattahoochee tunnel,
inner Brevard zone, Cobb Coutny. Georgia, in R.L. Kath and T. J. Crawford
(eds.) Across the Brevard Zone: The Chattahoochee Tunnel, Cobb County, Georgia,
Georgia Geological Society Guidebook 21, pp. 51-54.
Roden, M.F., T.E.
La Tour, J. Whitney, V.M. Anderson and R.C. Capps, 2002, Geochemistry and
petrology of crystalline basement beneath Coastal Plain sediments at the
Savannah River Site, South Carolina, USA, Southeastern Geology 41:37-62
Schroeder, P., J.
LeGolvan and M. Roden, 2002, Weathering of ilmeninte from granite and chlorite
schist in the Georgia Piedmont, USA, Am Mineral., 87: 1616-1625.
Harris, R.S.,
Roden, M., Schroeder, P., Holland, S., Duncan, M., and Albin, E. (2004) Upper
Eocene impact horizon in east-central Georgia, Geology 32: 717-720.
Dallmeyer, R.D., Roden, M.F.,
Swanson, S., 2005, Geologic overview of the Elberton, GA area, in Roden, M.,
Schroeder, P., Swanson, S. (eds.), Geologic Investigations of Elberton Granite
and Surrounding Rocks, GA Geol. Soc. Guidebook 25, 1-16.
Dvoracek, D.
Roden, M.F., 2005, The Danburg (GA) granite, Carolina Terrane: An Alleghanian
pluton showing evidence for mixing with a relatively alkaline magma, in Roden,
M., Schroeder, P., Swanson, S. (eds.), Geologic Investigations of Elberton
Granite and Surrounding Rocks, GA Geol. Soc. Guidebook 25, 81-95.
Roden, M.F., Schroeder, P.,
Swanson, S., (eds.), 2005, Geologic Investigations of Elberton Granite and
Surrounding Rocks, GA Geological Society Guidebook 25, 120 pp.
Patiño-Douce, A., Roden, M.
,2006, Apatite as a probe of halogen and water fugacities in the terrestrial
planets, Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 70: 3173-3196
Roden, M.F., Patino-Douce, A.,
Jagoutz, E., Laz’ko, E., 2006, High pressure petrogenesis of Mg-rich garnet
pyroxenites from Mir kimberlite, Siberia, Lithos 90: 77-91
Recent Abstracts
Kelley, M.S.,
Asher, P., Welten, K., Jull, A., Shultz, L., Roden, M., Mertzman, S., Albin,
E., 2005, Analysis of the Statesboro, Georgia, shock darkened L5 chondrite,
Lunar & Planet. Sci. XXXVI (abs.)
Patino-Douce, A., M.F. Roden, 2006, Fluorine, chlorine and water fugacities in
planetary basalts recorded by phosphate equilibria, Lunar Planet Sci. Conf.
2006, abstract #2037.
Roden, M., 2006,
Comparative silicate magmatism of asteroids and terrestrial planets,
NSF-sponsored workshop Discoveries from Mars: Using a Planetary Perspective to
Enhance Undergraduate Geoscience Course http://serc.carleton.edu/files/NAGTWorkshops/mars/roden_mars.pdf
Chaumba, J., M.F.
Roden, 2007, Structural setting and mineral compositional data from the
Durhamtown mafic complex, east central Georgia, Geol. Soc. Amer. Ab Pgm
(Southeastern Section), pg. 27.
Chaumba, J., M.
Roden, G. Allard, A. Patino Douce, 2007, Coronas in metatroctolites from the
Russell Lake Allocthon, southern Appalachians, Geol. Soc. Amer. Ab. Pgm.
Clark, S.,
Hodges, M., Kinsella, M., McGregor, H., Dvoracek, D., Roden, M., Swanson, S.,
2007, Evidence for high pressure fractionation in a diabase dike near Elberton
GA, Geol. Soc. Amer. Ab. Pgm. (Southeastern Section), pg. 28.
Crowe, D.,
Fleisher, C., Holland, S., Johnson, K., Jordan, T., Kamola, D., Kohn, M.,
Roden, M., 2007, Evolution of the Georgia-South Carolina Geology Field School
(Invited), Geol. Soc.Amer. Ab. Pgm.
Clark, S., M.
Roden, 2008, Mineralogy and bulk-rock geochemistry of olivine-normative dikes
in Georgia and South Carolina, Geol. Soc. Amer. Ab. Pgm. (Southeastern Section)
