Professional Preparation

Research Areas

Responses in the Earth's Crust

Mortaza is broadly interested in how the Earth’s crust evolves in response to deformation, surface processes and climate change; and how its sedimentary cover hosts energy resources. In the regional scale, he models the flexure of the lithosphere to distinguish the source of deflection forces due to topography, basin load and mantle dynamics. He is also interested in the functioning of fold-thrust belts and foreland basin systems, in order to understand how mountain ranges and basins form and migrate in time and space; and how climate interacts with deformation and surface processes. To study these problems, he utilizes a multidisciplinary approach including fieldwork, subsurface data, geophysical data including gravity and 2D/3D seismic reflections, paleomagnetism, geochronology, analogue experiments and numerical simulations. Integration of all these different data sources makes powerful tools for deciphering the Earth crust behavior from an outcrop to continental scale. In the local scale, he is also interested in modeling structurally complex regions and petroleum reservoirs in 3D/4D. He uses Petrel and Move softwares to analyze the seismic reflections, borehole, and log data; and ArcMap software for statistical and cartographical purposes.

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