Tina Dura

Dr. Tina Dura is an Assistant Professor of Natural Hazards in the Department of Geosciences at Virginia Tech's College of Science. Her research focuses on subduction zone paleogeodesy, combining coastal stratigraphy, micropaleontology, and geophysical modeling to reconstruct historical earthquake and tsunami events. She leads a lab specializing in diatom-based analysis to quantify coseismic land-level changes and tsunami inundation patterns.

Education: PhD in Earth Science (University of Pennsylvania, 2014), MA in Geology (Central Washington University, 2010), BA Honors in Geology (Occidental College, 2004).

Research interests include subduction zone geohazards, paleoseismic reconstruction, and the interplay between sea-level change and tectonics. Her work emphasizes field-based stratigraphic analysis combined with laboratory microfossil studies, particularly diatom ecology and foraminiferal assemblages. Recent studies focus on the Cascadia Subduction Zone, Alaska-Aleutian megathrust, and south-central Chile.

Her lab group has pioneered diatom-based methods for quantifying coseismic subsidence across sharp stratigraphic boundaries and identifying tsunami deposits over millennial timescales. Current projects integrate field data with numerical models to improve hazard assessments under future sea-level rise scenarios.

Advising: Supervises graduate students Jessica DePaolis (PhD) and Alexa Prater (MS), as well as undergraduate researchers Kelly Hale and Alexa Dodson. Active in collaborative initiatives like the USGS Powell Center Cascadia Earthquake Working Group.

Labs/Teams: Director of the Dura Lab at Virginia Tech, part of the Coastal and Environmental Geology Research Group. Maintains active field sites in Oregon, Alaska, Chile, and Japan.