U-M Office of the Provost: Provost's Senior Staff

Provost's Senior Staff

Ben van der Pluijm

Professor of Geology and Professor of the Environment
Senior Counselor to the Provost for University Accreditation

Ben van der Pluijm coordinates a variety of activities in preparation for the University’s re-accreditation review in 2010. The review evaluates the institution in five major categories: mission and integrity; preparing for the future; student learning and effective teaching; acquisition, discovery and application of knowledge; and engagement and service. The process begins with a two-year self-study that involves the help and cooperation of units across the entire campus. It also includes a special-emphasis study on internationalization of the university.

Ben joined the faculty of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1985. Currently he holds joint appointments in Geological Sciences and in the Program in the Environment, and is Director of the university’s undergraduate degree program in Global Change. He completed his “kandidaats” and “doctoraal” at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands. He moved to the University of New Brunswick in Canada for dissertation research on Appalachian geology.

His primary research interests are in the field of structural geology, which deals with the deformation of geological materials. The scales of his work range from the microscope to the mountain belt, using laboratory methods that include x-ray analysis, electron microscopy, geothermochronology, geochemistry and rock magnetism. Recent topics in his research group are seismic faulting, deep-crustal architecture, orogenic exhumation, fault gouge and pseudotachylyte formation, curved orogenic belts and clay microstructures. Recent field areas are in western North America, western Brazil, northern Spain, western Uganda and New Zealand.

In addition to lower and upper level course offerings in geology and in the environment, including the interdisciplinary, team-taught Global Change curriculum, his educational interest involve the development and use of modern technologies to enhance students’ learning experiences, such as TabletPCs for fieldwork and handheld and laptop PCs for large classroom interactivity. These activities are carried out in partnerships with NSF, industry and the university.

Ben has served on various department, college and university committees, and currently chairs the President’s campus-wide Interdisciplinarity Initiative. He serves on (inter)national agency panels, including the US National Science Foundation and the International Ocean Drilling Program. He is a member of several editorial boards and recently completed a five-year term as the editor of the Earth Sciences journal, GEOLOGY. He has co-authored more than 140 peer-reviewed articles, edited several book volumes and published two editions of the undergraduate textbook "Earth Structure".

He is married and has two teenage sons.

Selected Publications:
Rahl, J.M, Ehlers, T.A., van der Pluijm, B.A., 2007. Quantifying transient erosion with detrital thermochronology from syntectonic basin deposits. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 256, 147-161.
Warr, L.N., van der Pluijm, B.A., Tourscher, S., 2007. The age and depth of exhumed friction melts along the Alpine Fault, New Zealand. Geology, 35, 603-606.
Knoop, P.A., van der Pluijm, B., 2006. GeoPad: Tablet PC-enabled Field Science Education. In: "The Impact of Pen-based Technology of Education: Vignettes, Evaluations, and Future Directions", eds., D. Berque, J. Prey, and R. Reed. Purdue University Press, 103-114.
Schleicher, A.M., van der Pluijm, B.A., Solum, J.G., Warr, L.N., 2006. Origin and significance of clay-coated fractures in mudrock fragments of the SAFOD borehole (Parkfield, California). Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, doi:10.1029/2006GL026505 (August).
Tohver, E., Teixeira, W., van der Pluijm, B., Geraldes, M.C., Bettencourt, J.S., Rizotto, G., 2006. Restored transect across the exhumed Grenville orogen of Laurentia and Amazonia, with implications for crustal architecture. Geology, 34, 669-672.
van der Pluijm, B.A., 2006. The Global Change Curriculum and Minor at the University of Michigan. J. Geosci. Educ., 54, 249-254.
van der Pluijm, B.A., Vrolijk, P.J., Pevear, D.R., Hall, C.M., Solum, J.G., 2006. Fault dating in the Canadian Rocky Mountains: Evidence for late Cretaceous and early Eocene orogenic pulses. Geology, 34, 837-840.
van der Pluijm, B.A., and Marshak, S., 2004. Earth Structure - An Introduction to Structural Geology and Tectonics; 2nd edition. W.W. Norton, New York, 656p.