Dr Alan Collins

Biography/ Background

Doctor Alan Collins received a BSc (Hons.) degree from the Royal School of Mines, Imperial College, The University of London, then completed a PhD in 1997 at The University of Edinburgh on the tectonics of SW Turkey. This work identified multiple stages of thrust-sheet movement, foreland basin formation and subsequent consumption in the ophiolite-bearing Lycian nappes along the Aegean and Mediterranean coast of Turkey. After completing this, Alan went down in the crust and back in time to work on the Ediacaran-Cambrian amalgamation of Gondwana, working initially in Madagascar, and later in East Africa, India, Western Australia and East Antarctica. Using tectono-stratigraphic techniques, he has helped unravel much of the East African Orogen to produce a model for the collision of Neoproterozoic India with the central Africa. This work began in Leicester University, UK, and continued in the Tectonics Special Research Centre in Curtin University and The University of Western Australia.

Doctor Alan Collins commenced at The University of Adelaide as a Senior Lecturer in 2005 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2009. His on-going research directs various aspects of geoscience, including palaeomagnetism, structural geology, geochronology and sedimentology to answer geologically significant questions.

Qualifications

PhD (Edinburgh)
Thesis title "Tectonics Architecture of the Lycian Thrust Sheets, SW Turkey" Advisers: Alastair Robertson, John Dixon

BSc (Hons) 1st class, Geology
Royal School of Mines, Inperial College, University of London

Associate of the Royal School of Mines (ARSM)

2002 F.W. James Chair in Geology at the St Francis Xavier University, NS, Canada

2007 Flinn Award Winner - International Lithosphere Program

Teaching Interests

Alan is a member of the Discipline of Geology and Geophysics and teaches significant parts of the Geology, Geophysics and Environmental Geoscience majors.

He is the course coordinator of:

Structural Geology II
Tectonics III

He also teaches part of:

Field Geoscience III
Earth's Interior

To do these courses enroll in the flagship course in the Faculty of Science - the Bachelor of Science http://www.adelaide.edu.au/programs/ug/prog/sciences/#sci

Research Interests

Overall, Dr. Collins is interested in linking many of the sub-disciplines of geoscience into a constrained model for the evolution of a region, or the determination of a process. A particular bias in structural geology and geo(thermo)chronology.

Alan is a member of the Continental Evolution Research Group (CERG) - http://www.adelaide.edu.au/cerg/

Specific ongoing research areas:

The tectonics and palaeogeography of the Neoproterozoic world

Palaeoproterozoic plate tectonics and the development of modern plate-margin processes

The Neoproterozoic to recent evolution of the northern Gondwana margin - the Alps, Himalaya and SE Asia

The Proterozoic to Recent tectonic evolution of Australia

Doctor Alan Collins has conducted research in Australia, Canada, India, Madagascar, Pakistan, Poland, Tanzania, Turkey and the UK. Current research projects are located in India, Australia, Tanzania and Antarctica. He welcomes enquiries from potential students and collaborators.

For a full list of projects and those of other CERG members see - http://www.adelaide.edu.au/cerg/projects/

Publications

Since 2005
For full list see - http://www.ees.adelaide.edu.au/research/geology/cerg/pubs/pub_acollins.html

Kelsey D.E., Wade, B.P., COLLINS, A.S., Hand, M., Sealing, C.R. and Netting, A. 2008. A Neoproterozoic basin precursor to UHT metamorphism in the Prydz Bay belt in east Antarctica. Precambrian Research, 161, 355-388.

Li, Z.X., Bogdanova, S.V., COLLINS, A.S., Davidson, A., De Waele, B., Ernst, R.E., Fitzsimons, I.C.W., Fuck, R.A., Gladkochub, D.P., Jacobs, J., Karlstrom, K.E., Lu, S., Natapov, L.M., Pease, V., Pisarevsky, S.A., Thrane, K., Vernikovsky, V. 2008, Assembly, configuration, and break-up history of Rodinia: a synthesis, Precambrian Research, 160, 179-210.

COLLINS, A.S., Santosh, M., Braun, I and Clark, C. 2007. Age and Sedimentary Provenance of the Southern Granulites, South India. U-Th-Pb SHRIMP Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry. Precambrian Research, 155, 125-138

Pisarevsky, S.A., Murphy, J.B., Cawood, P.A and COLLINS, A.S. 2008. Late Neoproterozoic and Early Cambrian palaeogeography: models and problems. In: Brito Neves, B.B., Trouw, R.A.J., de Wit, M.J. and Pankhurst, R.J. (eds). Western Gondwana: Pre-Cenozoic Geology Bordering the South Atlantic. Geological Society, London, Special Publication, 294, 9-31.

Strachan, R., COLLINS, A.S., Buchan, C., Nance, D., Murphy, B. and D'Lemos, 2007. Provenance and age of metamorphism of basement gneisses within the Avalon terrane, southern Britain: evidence from U-Pb (SHRIMP) detrital zircon geochronology. Journal of the Geological Society, London, Special. 164, 57-60.

COLLINS, A.S., Clark, C., Sajeev, K., Santosh, M., Kelsey, D.E., and Hand, M., 2007, Passage Through India: The Mozambique Ocean Suture, High Pressure Granulites and the Palghat-Cauvery Shear System, Terra Nova, 19, 141-147.

Kelsey, D.E., Clark, C., Hand, M. and COLLINS, A.S. 2006. Comment on "First report of garnet-corundum rocks from southern India: Implications for prograde high-pressure (eclogite-facies?) metamorphism" by Shimpo et al. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 242 (2006) 111-129. Earth & Planetary Science Letters, 249, 529-534.

Clark, C., Schmidt Mumm, A. and COLLINS, A.S. 2006. A coupled micro- and macro structural approach to the analysis of fluid induced brecciation, Curnamona Province, South Australia. Journal of Structural Geology, 28, 745-761.

Kehelpannala, K.V.W. and COLLINS, A.S., 2006. The Role of Sri Lanka and Associated Continental Blocks in the Assembly and Break-up of Rodinia and Gondwana: Introduction. Journal of Asian Earth Sciences, 28, 1-2.

Santosh, M., COLLINS, A.S., Tamashiro, I., Koshimoto, S., Nagata, M., Tsutsumi, Y. and Yokoyama, K., 2006. The Timing of Ultrahigh-temperature Metamorphism in Southern India: U-Th-Pb Electron Microprobe Ages from Zircon and Monazite in Sapphirine-bearing Granulites. Gondwana Research, 10, 128-155.

Parthasarathy, G., COLLINS, A.S. and Chetty, T.R.K., 2006. Natural graphite from Neoproterozoic psammitic gneiss, Inanalo Mountain, southern Madagascar. Journal of the Geological Society of India, 68, 176-180.

Danelian, T., Robertson, A.H.F., COLLINS, A.S. and Poisson, A. 2006. Biochronology of Jurassic and Early Cretaceous radiolarites from the Lycian Melange (SW Turkey) and implications for the evolution of the Northern Neotethyan ocean. In Robertson, A. H. F. & Mountrakis, D. (eds) Tectonic Development of the Eastern Mediterranean Geological Society, London, Special Publication 260, 229-236.

Santosh, M., Tagawa, M., Yokoyama, K. and COLLINS, A.S. 2006. U-Pb Electron probe geochronology of the Nagercoil Granulites, Southern India: Implications for Gondwana Amalgamation. Journal of Asian Earth Sciences, 28, 63-80.

COLLINS, A.S., 2006. Madagascar and the Amalgamation of Central Gondwana. Gondwana Research (GR Focus). 9, 3-16

COLLINS, A.S. and Pisarevsky S.A., 2005. Amalgamating eastern Gondwana: The evolution of the Circum-Indian Orogens. Earth Science Reviews, 71, 229-270.

Professional Associations

Member of the Geological Society of Australia Secretary of the UNESCO International Geological Correlation Programme Project 509 (Palaeoproterozoic Supercontinents and Evolution). http://earth.geology.yale.edu/igcp509/

2005-2007 Chair of the Specialist Group in Tectonics and Structural Geology (SGTSG) of the Geological Society of Australia. http://www.sgtsg.gsa.org.au/

Joint Secretary of the International Association for Gondwana Research. http://www.gondwanaresearchonline.com/General/Index.aspx

Associate Editor of the Journal 'Gondwana Research'. http://ees.elsevier.com/gr/

Member of the Editorial Board of Precambrian Research. http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/503357/description#description

Subject Editor for the Journal of the Geological Society, London. http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/template.cfm?name=journals_jgs_home_page Co-opted editor of the Tanzanian Journal of Earth Sciences

Member of the Mineralogical Society of America Member of the Geological Society of America Member of the American Geophysical Union

Files

• Collins & Pisarevsky 2005 Earth Science Reviews - Neoproterozoic palaeogeography of eastern Gondwana - Collins_and_Pisarevsky_2005_Earth_Science_Reviews.pdf [2.3MB] (application/pdf)
• Collins 2006 - Gondwana Reseach - Review of the geology of Madagascar - Collins_2006_-_Gondwana_Research.pdf [852.5K] (application/pdf)

Expertise for Media Contact

Categories	Science and technology
Expertise	geology; structural geology; earthquakes; tectonics; gondwana; snowball earth; neoproterozoic; rock deformation; formation of mountain ranges; plate tectonics; amalgamation of Australia; faults; folds; dating rocks; geochronology
Notes	Chair of the Geological Society of Australia's Specialist Group in Tectonics and Structural Geology Senior Lecturer in Structural Geology at the University of Adelaide

Entry last updated: Sunday, 7 Feb 2010