Geology Ph.D. student, Mark Ford, is studying rhyolitic volcanism in the High Lava Plains of southeastern and central Oregon. The origin of these rhyolites is debated and refining their chemistry and association with the crustal and mafic rocks of the area will help determine both their petrogenesis and the tectonomagmatic evolution of the area. The project is part of a larger Continental Dynamics collaborative research project in the Pacific Northwest.