Teaching

Fundamentals of Research (GEOL 5020) - every fall
This course is designed to be boot camp for incoming graduate students to: (A) become familiar with the “business” of science (i.e. how do I get funding, become visible and get a job?); (B) refine their communication skills; (C) get a jump start on developing a research project (ideally to be part of a MS or PhD thesis); (D) familiarize incoming graduate students on the workings of the department; and (E) have an opportunity to get to know their peers and some of the faculty.

Engineering and Environmental Geophysics (CE 5321/GEOL 5321) - spring, odd years
The content in this class fills the need for civil/environmental/transportation engineers and earth scientists to be capable at applying near-surface geophysical measurements and understanding the strengths and limitations of these methods for solving problems. Topics covered include principals of ground penetrating radar, electrical resistivity, seismic, nuclear magnetic resonance, rock physics relationships, inversion and other topics. A review of examples from the peer-reviewed scientific/engineering literature is presented. Students collect lab and field datasets and process and interpret the data. 

Research

Environmental Geophysics is the interdisciplinary field that investigates processes in Earth's systems using geophysical measurements. My research focuses on studying cryosphere and groundwater processes using non-invasive geophysical methods. Members of my research group have expertise with ground penetrating radar, seismic refraction tomography, time-lapse electrical resistivity tomography, and nuclear magnetic resonance.

Recent Publications

*indicates student lead-author

• Rangel, R. C.*, Ohara, N., Parsekian, A. D., & Jones, B. M. (2023). Arctic tundra lake drainage increases snow storage in drifts. Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, 128, e2023JF007294. https://doi.org/10.1029/2023JF007294

• Li, A.*, Grana, D., Parsekian, A. D., & Carr, B. (2023). Uncertainty Quantification in Tomographic Inversion of Near-Surface Seismic Refraction Data. Mathematical Geosciences, 1-25. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11004-023-10083-9.

• Burns, E. F.*, Rempe, D. M., Parsekian, A. D., Schmidt, L. M., Singha, K., & Barnard, H. R. (2023). Ecohydrologic dynamics of rock moisture in a montane catchment of the Colorado Front Range. Water Resources Research, 59, e2022WR034117. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022WR034117

• Sullivan, T.D.* and Parsekian, A. D. (2023) The effects of temperature on shallow borehole NMR measurements in permafrost. Cold Regions Science and Technology, 211, 103850 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coldregions.2023.103850.

• Pleasants, M. S.*, Kelleners, T. J., Parsekian, A. D., & Befus, K. M. (2023) A Comparison of Hydrological and Geophysical Calibration Data in Layered Hydrologic Models of Mountain Hillslopes. Water Resources Research, e2022WR033506 https://doi.org/10.1029/2022WR033506.

• Chen, R.H., Michaelides, R.J., Zhao, Y., Huang, L., Wig, E., Sullivan, T.D., Parsekian, A.D., Zebker, H.A., Moghaddam, M. and Schaefer, K.M., (2023) Permafrost Dynamics Observatory (PDO)–Part II: Joint Retrieval of Permafrost Active Layer Thickness and Soil Moisture from L‐band InSAR and P‐band PolSAR. Earth and Space Science, p.e2022EA002453. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EA002453

• Smeltz, N. Y.*, Sims, K. W., Carr, B. J., & Parsekian, A. D. (2022). Geologic controls on hydrothermal groundwater mixing in Yellowstone National Park. Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, 107650. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvolgeores.2022.107650

• Grana, D., Parsekian, A. D., Flinchum, B. A., Callahan, R. P., Smeltz, N. Y., Li, A., Hayes, J.L. et al. (2022). Geostatistical Rock Physics Inversion for Predicting the Spatial Distribution of Porosity and Saturation in the Critical Zone. Mathematical Geosciences, 1-31. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11004-022-10006-0

• Ohara, N., Jones, B. M., Parsekian, A. D., Hinkel, K. M., Yamatani, K., Kanevskiy, M., ... & Bergstedt, H. (2021). Three-Dimensional Stefan Equation for Thermokarst Lake and Talik Geometry Characterization. The Cryosphere. 16, 1247–1264. https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-1247-2022

• Pleasants, M.S.*, F. dos A. Neves, A.D. Parsekian, K.M. Befus, T.J. Kelleners (2022) Hydrogeophysical Inversion of Time-Lapse ERT Data to Determine Hillslope Subsurface Hydraulic Properties. Water Resources Research. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021WR031073

• Ohara, N., He, S., Parsekian, A.D., Jones, B.M., Rangel, R.C., Nichols, I.O. and Hinkel, K.M. (2022) Spatial Snowdrift Modeling for an Open Natural Terrain using a Physically‐based Linear Particle Distribution Equation. Hydrological Processes, p.e14468. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.14468

• Jones, B.M., Grosse, G., Farquharson, L.M., Roy-Léveillée, P., Veremeeva, A., Kanevskiy, M.Z., Gaglioti, B.V., Breen, A.L., Parsekian, A.D., Ulrich, M. and Hinkel, K.M. (2022) Lake and drained lake basin systems in lowland permafrost regions. Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, 3(1), pp.85-98. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-021-00238-9

Please see my GoogleScholar profile for a full list of peer-reviewed journal articles.