Dr. Collin Brandl

Pronouns: He/Him

Postdoctoral Research Scientist, Marine and Polar Geophysics, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO), Columbia Climate School

Oceanography 303A

BIOGRAPHY:

I am a Postdoctoral Research Scientist in the Marine and Polar Geophysics Division. I am a marine geophysicist who primarily uses active source seismology, both multichannel seismic reflection and wide-angle refraction, to constrain crustal structure.

I am interested in the structure and evolution of past and present plate boundaries. These environments inform our fundamental understanding of plate tectonics and can have major societal impacts through hazards like earthquakes and tsunamis. During graduate school, I worked on the east coast of the U.S. using data from the ENAM-CSE (Eastern North American Margin-Community Seismic Experiment) and on the Queen Charlotte Plate Boundary using data from TOQUES (Transform Obliquity on the Queen Charlotte Fault and Earthquake Study).

At Lamont, I am working on a collaborative project to understand the Blake Plateau offshore eastern Florida. Blake Plateau is significantly wider than its adjacent rift segment (the Carolina Trough) suggesting that there were substantial differences during breakup. The active source seismic dataset, FLAME (FLorida Atlantic Margin Evolution), was acquired in 2023 to constrain the crustal structure of Blake Plateau and understand its rifting history.

PUBLICATIONS

Brandl, C. C., Worthington, L. L., Roland, E. C., Walton, M. A. L., Nedimović, M. R., Gase, A. C., et al. (2025). Seismic imaging reveals a strain-partitioned sliver and nascent megathrust at an incipient subduction zone in the northeast Pacific. Science Advances, 11(29), eadt3003.

Gase, A. C., E. C. Roland, L. L. Worthington, M. A. L. Walton, M. G. Bostock,
M. R. Nedimović, A. H. Barclay, J. A. Collins, C. C. Brandl, S. J. Oliva, T. Sun (2025), “TOQUES: An ocean-bottom seismometer dataset on the central Queen Charlotte Fault, Southeast Alaska”, Seismological Research Letters – Data Mine

Brandl, C. C., L. L. Worthington, M. B. Magnani, D. J. Shillington, T. J. Luckie (2023), “Discontinuous Igneous Addition along the Eastern North American Margin beneath the East Coast Magnetic Anomaly”, Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth – Editor’s Highlight in EOS, https://doi.org/10.1029/2023JB026459