Northern Arizona University

• Department Home
• News and Announcements
• Degree Programs
• People
• Research
• Facilities
• Affiliates
• Alumni & Advisory Board
• Resources
• Contact Us

Dr. Michael H. Ort

Title: Professor
Degree: Ph.D., University of California
Specialty:  Volcanology, Igneous Petrology, and Geochemistry

Research Interests: My primary research is on volcanoes, including eruption and emplacement processes, petrology, geochemistry, and the interactions of humans with volcanoes. My research into eruption and emplacement processes of pyroclastic flows and surges has focused on large-volume ignimbrites in Argentina and Italy and on maar volcanoes in Arizona, Alaska, and Italy. The driving question is how do these pyroclastic gravity currents form and move. Because we really only have deposits to work with, my research designs aim to cut through the "filter" of the deposition to get at what the current looked and acted like , at least in the lower part, near the depositional zone. I commonly use careful field work, petrography (optical and electron), and paleomagnetism (especially anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility) as tools. My petrologic interests currently center on the origins of the Hopi Buttes (NE Arizona) monchiquitic and nephelinitic magmas. I have an isotope clean lab and am a co-PI on our new multi-collector ICP mass spectrometer, on which we can do much of the analysis. I am also currently working on the interaction between humans and the youngest volcanism in the Southwestern USA, concentrating on the ~1050 AD Sunset Crater eruption near Flagstaff and the Little Springs eruption (dated between 1100 and 1200 AD). Both eruptions had profound effects on the people living there then, so I am working with an archaeologist and other geologists to understand how the environment changed. For further details, please click here.