I am also a co-PI on a collaborative project, funded by a five-year grant from the Continental Dynamics Program at NSF, called RETREAT: an interdisciplinary study of syn-convergence extension in the northern Apennines in Italy. With UW graduate students Gabriele Casale and Andrew Gendaszek and colleagues at the University of Arizona, we are broadening our research to address the Neogene to present-day history of subduction of the Adria microplate beneath Croatia (ADVANCE). The UW component focuses on the structural geology and the evolution of karst in the Dinaride orogenic wedge.

In earlier research projects, several graduate students and UW colleagues and I investigated how diverse rock units and terranes in the northwest Cordillera were accreted and displaced in Cretaceous to early Tertiary time. Our findings bear on the current controversy about Baja British Columbia (pdf).

Selected Publications:
Cowan, D. S., Brandon, M.T., and Garver, J. I., 1997, Geologic tests of hypotheses for large coastwise Displacements-A critique illustrated by the Baja British Columbia controversy: American Journal of Science, v. 297, p. 117-173.

Cowan, D.S., 1999, Do faults preserve a record of seismic slip? A field geologist's opinion: Journal of Structural Geology Twentieth Anniversary Issue, v. 21, p. 995-1001.

Cowan, D.S., and Pini, G.A., 2001, Disrupted and chaotic rock units, in Vai, G.B., and Martini, I.P., eds., Anatomy of an Orogen-The Apennines and Adjacent Mediterranean Basins: Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, p. 165-176.

Hayman, N. W., Knott, J.R., Cowan, D.S., Nemser, E., and Sarna-Wojcicki, A.M., 2003, Quaternary low-angle slip on detachment faults in death valley, California: Geology, v. 31.

Cowan, D.S., Cladouhos, T.T. and Morgan, J.K., 2003, Structural geology and kinematic history of rocks formed along low-angle normal faults, Death Valley, California: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 155, p. 1230-1248.

Cowan, D.S., 2003, Revisiting the Baranof-Leech River hypothesis for early Tertiary coastwise transport of the Chugach-Prince William terrane: Earth and Planetary Science Letters, v. 213, p. 463-475.

Bennett, R.A., Hreinsdottir, S., Buble, G., Basic, T., Marjanovic, M., Casale, G., Gendaszek, A., and Cowan, D.S., 2008, Eocene to present subduction of southern Adria mantle lithosphere beneath the Dinarides: Geology, v.36, p. 3-6.

Gabriele Casale: Restorations of cross sections across the Dinarides, and determination of large-scale properties of the Dinaric orogenic wedge

Andrew Gendaszek: Quaternary to present kinematic history of the external Dinarides (Croatia) revealed through the geomorphic evolution of karst landforms

Eliza Nemser: Evolution of damage-zone deformation along small-displacement oblique-slip faults, Borrego Mountain, southern California