Granitic pluton emplacement
My first geological research in the field took place in the beautiful island of Corsica where I relentlessly mapped geological structures in Permo-Carboniferous granitic rocks under the auspices of the French Geological Survey (BRGM) and my doctoral adviser Professor Jacques Marre (1936-1992). He guided my first steps into the identification and quantification of cryptic fabrics in granitic rocks, otherwise considered isototropic or fabricless.
Finally, as I was wrapping up my doctoral research, I stumbled upon some cordierite-orthoamphibole gneiss of enigmatic origin that were associated with peridotites and a massive metamorphic contact aureole (Ferré et al., 1988).
Stepping up the structural complexity, my second scientific objective was to establish the relative emplacement chronology of three distinct magmatic suites within the batholith near Cargèse, Corsica.
The first project, near Tizzano, Corsica focused on detailed mapping of the structural contact and lattice preferred orientation of quartz across the contact between two plutonic units: a gabbro-diorite and a leucocratic granite. This contact was so complex that it might have been fractal in dimension !!!