Timothy Lawton

Tim Lawton earned his A.B. from the University of California, M.S. from Stanford University, and Ph.D. from the University of Arizona. During summers from 1971-1980, he worked as a professional river guide in the California foothills, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and the Grand Canyon.

His main research focus has been on the relation of sedimentation to active deformation, particularly in foreland-basin settings. He has employed clastic petrology, stratigraphic correlation, and structural relations in growth strata to infer thrust timing and kinematics in Utah, the Ebro Basin of Spain, and northeastern Mexico. More recently, he expanded his study of syndeformational sedimentation to Jurassic extension and Laramide inversion in the Bisbee Basin of Arizona, New Mexico and Sonora, as well as to to salt-tectonic deformation in northeastern Mexico and the Paradox Basin of Utah. He has applied detrital zircon U-Pb geochronological analysis to provenance and paleogeographic topics in the US and Mexican Cordillera. His principal teaching assignments have included university courses in introductory geology, field geology, petroleum geology, basin analysis, sandstone petrology, exploration seismology, Cordilleran tectonics, sedimentology, and stratigraphy, as well as field courses in salt tectonics for industry and academic geologists.

Personal research contributions have included:

1. Concepts of synorogenic sedimentation in foreland basins of central Utah, eastern Spain, and northeastern Mexico. This work included timing of thrust deformation in Utah (Lawton, 1985), an early sedimentologic and stratigraphic analysis of a Laramide uplift (the San Rafael uplift; Lawton, 1983, 1986a), the first description of a piggyback or wedgetop basin in the North American Cordillera (Lawton and Trexler, 1991), the first description of long-lived fluvial fans at structural accommodation zones in the Sevier orogenic belt (Lawton et al., 1994), and the first application of dynamic subsidence to depositional systems of the Colorado Plateau (Lawton, 1994);
2. Petrologic characteristics and evolution of foreland-basin sandstones, including the relationship of foreland-basin sequence stratigraphy and sandstone petrology (Lawton et al., 2003) and early delineation of unroofing successions on the basis of sandstone and conglomerate petrology (Lawton, 1986b) and detrital zircons in quartzite clasts of foreland-basin conglomerate (Lawton et al., 2010);
3. Tectonics of Jurassic extension and Laramide inversion of the Border rift system of the southwestern United States (Lawton and Olmstead, 1995; Lawton and McMillan, 1999; Lawton, 2000);
4. Salt-influenced sedimentation, structure and sequence stratigraphy in the foreland of the Sierra Madre Oriental, northeastern Mexico. This research resulted in the first published example of an exposed salt weld (Giles and Lawton, 1999).

Syntheses of more general topics include the tectonics of sedimentary basin formation in the Rocky Mountain Region and the tectonic evolution of Mexico (Dickinson and Lawton, 2001). Lawton was the principal adviser of 38 MS students at New Mexico State University and graduated two MS students and a Ph.D. student at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

Research Interests

• Sedimentation and Tectonics
• Sandstone Petrology
• Provenance of Clastic Sedimentary Rocks and Sediments
• Cordilleran Tectonics
• Late Paleozoic Laurentian Provenance and Sediment Dispersal

Awards and Recognitions

• Honorable Mention Paper, Journal of Sedimentary Petrology, 1988
• Honorable Mention, Excellence in Oral Presentation, SEPM Mid-Year Meeting, 1992
• Chair, GSA Sedimentary Geiology Division, 1991-1992
• Visiting Professor, University of Barcelona, 1993-1994
• Co-Leader, GSA Geohostel Field Trip, Southeastern Arizona, 1997
• Best Guidebook, Geoscience Information Society, 2001
• Twenhofel Medal Citationist for W.R. Dickinson, 2001
• Associate Director, Institute of Tectonic Studies, NMSU, 1998-2011
• Fulbright-Garcia Robles Scholar, Mexico, 2007-2008
• New Mexico Geological Society Foundation Board of Directors, 2007-2012
• Basin Research Editorial Board, 2007-Present
• Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Geológicas Editorial Board, 2008-Present
• Manasse Chair, College of Arts and Sciences, NMSU, 2007-2009
• Laurence L. Sloss Award, GSA Sedimentary Geology Division, 2025