Dallas Abbott

Dallas Abbott (born 1963) is a geophysicist and adjunct research scientist at the Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University and is part of the Holocene Impact Working Group. Her research focuses on submarine impacts, megatsunamis, cosmic dust, and their effects on climate and Earth's geological history. She also has presented research regarding a large impact crater in the Gulf of Maine.

Education and career Abbott received her B.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Earth and Planetary Sciences) in 1974; her M.S. from the Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University (Marine Geology) in 1978; and her Ph.D. from the Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory (Marine Geology with a Geophysics minor) in 1982. During her graduate studies, she received the Boris Bakmeteff Fellowship in Fluid Mechanics and the Bruce Heezen Prize. Since 1990, Abbott has directed or co-directed LDEO's summer undergraduate internship program, which trains students in scientific research methods, technical writing, and data analysis.

She previously served on the editorial board of Precambrian Research and was named a Graduate Fellow of Columbia University.

Research In 1994, Abbott and colleagues published the first empirical thermal history of Earth's mantle. Prior to their work, most discussions of mantle evolution relied on theoretical models or assumed that Archean komatiites represented the average Archean mantle rather than isolated hotspot regions.

Her research in submarine geology has shown that volcanic arcs contain significantly more active underwater volcanoes than previously recorded in standard databases, as documented in a 2024 study. Abbott has also investigated potential links between submarine impacts and megatsunamis, including dating deposits in southern Madagascar that may have originated from submarine landslides or extraterrestrial impacts.

In the field of Precambrian geology, Abbott documented 2.0 billion-year-old native iron in the Chaibasa Formation of India, later interpreted by other researchers as resulting from a meteorite impact. Her work also explored correlations between mantle plume activity and the timing of large impact events during the Precambrian.

Her tectonic research proposed the concept of buoyant subduction around 2.4 billion years ago, which may account for differences in the formation of Archean continental crust.

Selected publications