Lara Wagner is a Staff Scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science. Her research uses seismic waves to study the internal structure of the Earth in order to learn more about how plate tectonic processes affect the evolution of the continents, especially at convergent margins where one plate descends into the Earth's mantle beneath another. These processes result in the movement water, carbon dioxide, and other materials into the Earth as they get dragged down by the sinking plate, only to be released, at least in part, back to the Earth's surface through volcanic and other processes. As these fluids cycle through Earth's interior, they dramatically change the structure of the plates and the chemistry of the rocks through which they pass. Seismology is uniquely capable of imaging these changes in three dimensions to give us a full picture of the Earth's deep interior and the processes to which it is subjected. Dr. Wagner's research has included field work internationally in Chile, Argentina, Peru, and now Colombia, and in the U.S. in Oregon, Nevada, Idaho, Georgia, North Carolina, and Delaware. For this project, Dr. Wagner will be working with Gaspar Monsalve and his students to deploy a network of seismometers above both the flat and normally dipping slabs in central Colombia.