As part of my PhD at OSU, I began a project with my advisor Adam Kent, Nestor Jimenez at UMSA, and Brian Jicha at UW-Madison.
My friend and colleague, Dr. Barry Walker, joined us on one of our trips to the field in 2009.

Tunupa interested us a research focus because it has similar morphology as the stratovolcanoes located along the border of Bolivia and Chile, however it is located some 115 km east of the arc front. We confirmed a relatively short eruptive period (between about 1.4 and 1.55 million years ago) and found that most notable compositional difference of the lavas of Tunupa and the stratovolcanoes of the arc front is in the high Nb concentrations Tunupa. Our results from Tunupa led us to investigate more of the volcanoes of the Intersalar Range that spans the arc front to Tunupa and the rear arc of the Bolivian Altiplano.

Tunupa is the name of the Andean creator god who is said to reside in the volcano.

Our study of Tunupa volcano resulted in a paper in Lithosphere, and can be accessed from my CV.