Shannon Mahan
My work focuses on the geochronology and associated dosimetry of luminescence dating, with the goal of understanding when, how, and the rates at which mineral grains acquire (and lose!) their luminescence signal.
I graduated from Adams State University (Colorado) with a B.S. in Geology in 1987 and was immediately hired into the USGS in April 1987. For those of you that are counting, this makes me the end of the “baby boomers” and working well into my third decade with the USGS. My career has been as varied as my interests, as I have worked in radiogenic isotopes, hydrology, stable isotopes, gamma spectrometry, and luminescence. I have been the USGS Luminescence Geochronology Lab Director since 1997 and routinely work on 20 to 30 projects during a year throughout the USGS mission areas.
Over the past 40 years, luminescence dating has become a key tool for dating sediments of interest in geologic, paleontologic, and archeologic research and this is my obvious scientific interest. Luminescence is also used to date paleoseismology sites, fluvial terraces (including paleoflood deposits), eolian deposits, and is increasingly used to calibrate wildfire temperatures, sediment transport processes, and thermochronology. The flexibility of luminescence is a key complement to other chronometers such as radiocarbon or cosmogenic nuclides. Like all geochronologic techniques, context is necessary for interpreting and calculating luminescence results and this can be achieved by supplying our lab with associated trench logs, photos, and stratigraphic locations of sample sites if you choose to work with us (Taken from Gray et al, 2015 paper Guide to Luminescence Dating Techniques and their Application for Paleoseismic Research; Mahan and DeWitt, 2019, Principles and history of Luminescence Dating Chapter 1 in Handbook of Luminescence Dating AND Mahan et al, 2022 guide for interpretating and reporting luminescence dating results).
The USGS Luminescence Geochronology Lab is composed of myself, Harrison Gray, and Emma Krolczyk. We are an integral part of multi-disciplinary, multi-agency, and multi-institutional projects that provide chronologic control for Quaternary field studies in the continental United States. The growth of the laboratory is due to the science that our partnership can generate with many other science agencies, both Federal, state, and academic. Additional publications and projects can be viewed from USGS Luminescence Dating Laboratory and on Research Gate.
Professional Experience
2023 - present: Acting Deputy Center Director
2021 - present: TRIGA Reactor System Administrator and Science Advisor
2008 - present: Research Geologist
1987 - 2008: Geologist
Education and Certifications
1986: B.S., Geology, Adams State College
Affiliations and Memberships*
Geological Society of America
Friends of the Pleistocene
INQUA
Science and Products
Four major Holocene earthquakes on the Reelfoot fault recorded by sackungen in the New Madrid seismic zone, USA
The Las Vegas Formation
Paleoseismic results from the Alpine site, Wasatch fault zone: Timing and displacement data for six holocene earthquakes at the Salt Lake City–Provo segment boundary
Examining the relationship between portable luminescence reader measurements and depositional ages of paleowetland sediments, Las Vegas Valley, Nevada
Holocene fault reactivation in the eastern Cascades, Washington
Application of a luminescence‐based sediment transport model
Combining conflicting Bayesian models to develop paleoseismic records—An example from the Wasatch Fault Zone, Utah
Late Quaternary loess and soils on uplands in the Canyonlands and Mesa Verde areas, Utah and Colorado
Can thermoluminescence be used to determine soil heating from a wildfire?
Holocene surface-faulting earthquakes at the Spring Lake and North Creek Sites on the Wasatch Fault Zone: Evidence for complex rupture of the Nephi Segment
On extracting sediment transport information from measurements of luminescence in river sediment
Dating of river terraces along Lefthand Creek, western High Plains, Colorado, reveals punctuated incision
Science and Products
Four major Holocene earthquakes on the Reelfoot fault recorded by sackungen in the New Madrid seismic zone, USA
The Las Vegas Formation
Paleoseismic results from the Alpine site, Wasatch fault zone: Timing and displacement data for six holocene earthquakes at the Salt Lake City–Provo segment boundary
Examining the relationship between portable luminescence reader measurements and depositional ages of paleowetland sediments, Las Vegas Valley, Nevada
Holocene fault reactivation in the eastern Cascades, Washington
Application of a luminescence‐based sediment transport model
Combining conflicting Bayesian models to develop paleoseismic records—An example from the Wasatch Fault Zone, Utah
Late Quaternary loess and soils on uplands in the Canyonlands and Mesa Verde areas, Utah and Colorado
Can thermoluminescence be used to determine soil heating from a wildfire?
Holocene surface-faulting earthquakes at the Spring Lake and North Creek Sites on the Wasatch Fault Zone: Evidence for complex rupture of the Nephi Segment
On extracting sediment transport information from measurements of luminescence in river sediment
Dating of river terraces along Lefthand Creek, western High Plains, Colorado, reveals punctuated incision
*Disclaimer: Listing outside positions with professional scientific organizations on this Staff Profile are for informational purposes only and do not constitute an endorsement of those professional scientific organizations or their activities by the USGS, Department of the Interior, or U.S. Government