Dr Aaron Cavosie

Biography

Aaron Cavosie is an American geologist, geochemist, and planetary scientist at Curtin University. I received my PhD in 2005 from the University of Wisconsin, which focused on discovery of the oldest minerals on Earth, from the outback of Western Australia. I was a full professor at the University of Puerto Rico for 10 years (2005-2014), until relocating to Perth in 2015.
As a planetary scientist, I study extreme geological events, including meteorite impacts. Meteorite impacts are very important, as they gave rise to life on the early Earth, may have been the trigger to start plate tectonics, have mobilized major economic deposits (Au, Ni), caused mass extinctions, and have severely modified Earth's crust. My students and I do field and laboratory studies in Australia, South Africa, the US, Canada, and elsewhere to study how rocks and minerals deform during the impact process so that we can recognize evidence of ancient impact events in the geological record. I currently (2018) am working on two NASA-funded projects run with US collaborators, as well as projects with colleagues at Curtin and elsewhere.

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