Wolfgang E. Elston

Ph.D., Columbia University, 1953 (Emeritus Professor)
Office: Northrop Hall Rm. 312-B; 277-5339

Research and Academic Interests:

Volcanology and economic geology; mid-Tertiary extensional tectonics and ignimbrite flareup of southwestern North America; ash-flow tuff cauldrons; relationship of volcanic centers to economic mineralization; regional geology of southwestern NM; the Proterozoic Bushveld catastrophe (South Africa) and its possible global effects: Evidence and Causes.

List of Related Web Links:

Listing of Recent Publications:

Geology and mineral occurrences of the mineral districts of Hidalgo County, southern New Mexico, in South Passage:" A Trip Through the Phaneroozic (eds., T.F. Lawton, N.J. McMillan, V.T. McLemore and J.M. Barker), New Mexico Geological Society Guidebook 51, 2000, (W.E. Elston and V.T. McLemore).

"Field guide to the base of the Rooiberg Group, eastern Bushveld Complex, South Africa," Part I: Evidence for a Bushveld catastrophe, p. 10, Part II: Field guide and illustrations, p. 21, Privately prepared for participants in a field excursion, 1999.

"Catastrophic trigger for 2.06 Ga Bushveld event, South Africa: Evidence from basal zones of the Rooiberg Group," (abstract), Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, v. 31, no. 7, p. 261-262, 1999.

"Proposed Bushveld-Vredefort multiple megaimpacts: Possible correlation with global 2.1-2.0 Ga events and the Proterophytic-Paleophytic boundary (abstract)," Meteoritics and Planetary Science, v. 31, p. A41-A42, 1996.

"Siliceous volcanic centers as guides to mineral exploration", Economic Geology, v. 89, p. 1662-1686, 1995.

"Bushveld Complex and Vredefort dome; The case for multiple-impact origin," Geology Society of South Africa, Centennial Geocongress, p. 392-395, 1995.

"Basic and intermediate volcanism of the Mogollon-Datil volcanic field, New Mexico," (eds., H.M. Prichard, T. Alabaster, N.B.W. Harris and C.R. Neary), Magmatic Processes and Plate Tectonics, London, The Geological Society Special Publication 76, p. 469-488, 1993, (W.E. Elston, J.M. Davis and C.J. Hawkesworth).

"How did impact processes on Earth and Moon become respectable in geological thought?," Earth Science History, v. 9, pp. 82-97, 1990.

"Patterns of volcanism along the southern margin of the Colorado Plateau," Journal of Geophysical Research, v. 94, p. 7975-7986, 1989 (with C. Condit, L. Crumpler and J.Aubele).

"Eocene-Miocene Mogollon-Datil volcanic field, New Mexico," in Chapin, C.E. and Zidek, J. (eds), Field Excursions to Volcanic Terranes in the western United States, v. 1, Southern Rocky Mountains, International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Interior: New Mexico Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources, Memoir 46, pp. 43-119, 1989 (with J.C. Ratté, S.M. Cather, C.E. Chapin, W.A. Duffield and W.C. McIntosh).