I am a seismologist who determines the seismic structure of the Earth’s interior to understand its chemical composition and dynamic processes by analyzing seismic phases. Particularly, I am interested in:
- Imaging seismic scatterers to understand the fate of subducted oceanic crust and its contribution to geochemical heterogeneity.
- Exploring the crust/mantle/inner core seismic structure.
- Imaging the structure of subducting slabs to help understand the deep-focus earthquake genesis and the deep water cycle.
- Anatomizing the nature of lithosphere and mantle discontinuities in terms of sharpness and impedance contrast.
- Constraining the seismic anisotropy, the directional and polarizational dependence of seismic wave speeds, which is a consequence of strain-induced lattice-preferred orientation of minerals in the Earth’s mantle. Measurement of seismic anisotropy represents perhaps the best tool available to directly probe the past and present patterns of deformation at depth.
- Characterizing the tectonic processes in particular associated with continental subduction, seamount subduction, and flat-slab subduction.
- Understanding the physics of oceans by analyzing T-waves.
- Studying the physics of an earthquake by analyzing the mainshock-aftershock sequence’s characteristics.
To get a better understanding of the Earth’s internal structure and dynamics, I also incorporate seismic results with constraints from other Earth science fields, like geodynamics, petrogeology, and mineral physics.
I am interested in mentoring (under-)graduate students and post-doctoral researchers, and enjoy working closely with them to get some ideas onto paper. If you are a prospective student, please do not hesitate to contact me.
My Curriculum Vitae: PDF
My ORCID: 0000-0002-6357-8948
Web of Science ResearchID: C-5208-2009
Xiaobo He 