Research

Dr. Camacho is interested in the theoretical and practical use of geochronology to establish cooling histories and the rates of tectonic processes. He studies the spatial and temporal relations among shearing and fluid flow in subducting zones where rapid burial advects cold material into the mantle by addressing the following questions:

1. What are the characteristics of the fluids and where do they originate?
2. Can phase transformations occur under dry conditions or is a fluid always required?
3. What are the durations of thermal pulses associated with the advection of heat by fluids or shear heating?
4. Are exhumation histories diagnostic of the burial process; i.e., are the cooling data, typically collected from metamorphic terranes that represent rapidly subducted crust, unique?

He is also interested in addressing the fundamental processes that affect isotopic ages, including: geological conditions that influence the mobility of isotopes, chemical factors that control the retentivity of minerals, diffusion mechanisms, and partitioning of isotopes between minerals.