MIT EAPS Directory

Ashley Bellas is a postdoctoral fellow in the Royden group. She studies the structure and dynamics of the Earth’s mantle and lithosphere, primarily by using numerical models and data processing techniques to quantitatively compare model predictions with geophysical observations like surface flexure, seismic tomography, and the motions of hotspot volcanoes. She is fluent in computational methods and passionate about the underlying physics that govern the evolution of Earth on geologic timescales. She has contributed to understanding the strength of tectonic plates and, by extension, how and why Earth is the only planet in the solar system with a “mobile lid”. Her ongoing research is focused on constraining the structure and dynamical implications of the Large Low Shear Velocity Provinces (LLSVPs), two mysterious continent-sized anomalies at the base of the mantle which appear to be primordial in age, compositionally distinct, and slightly denser than the surrounding mantle. 

Ashley received a PhD in Geophysics from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2021, and a BSc in Geophysics from the University of British Columbia in 2014.
 

For a list of recent publications, see here