InterRidge Chair (2020 -), the representative of Korea (1998-2006)

Sang-Mook Lee

Associate Professor at the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Seoul National University

Sang-Mook Lee is an Associate Professor at the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Seoul National University, Korea where he specializes in Marine Geology and Geophysics. He also heads the computational science programs. Sang-Mook began his career by majoring in Oceanography for his BS degree at Seoul National University. He then went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program, participating in the survey of the East Pacific Rise onboard RV Thomas Washington in 1988. After receiving his Ph.D., he went to study Reykjanes Ridge as a British Ridge and InterRidge postdoc at the University of Durham in England. He returned to Korea in 1998 where he led many cruises in the Western Pacific until 2003 to join his alma mater. Sang-Mook was an Associate Member of the Korean Academy of Science and Technology and is the President of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics Korea Committee. He currently leads the Planet A Project under the 10-10 Initiative of the university where he promotes data science and ICT to address important societal issues by inspiring young people. On July 2, 2006, during a geologic field trip in California dessert, Sang-Mook was critically injured in a van rollover accident which made him a quadriplegic. The accident made him completely paralyzed neck down. Nobody thought he would return. However, in less than six months, he returned back to the university in an electric wheelchair. His incredible comeback was reported nationwide, which made him a celebrity overnight. 

Book

• 0.1 Gram of Hope (in Korean), Sang-Mook Lee and In-Shik Kang, RandomHouse Korea, pp.341, 2008.

Edited Book

• Back-Arc Spreading Systems: Geological, Biological, Chemical, and Physical Interactions, edited by Dave M. Christie, Charles R. Fisher, Sang-Mook Lee, and Sharon Givens, Geophysical Monography Series 166, American Geophysical Union, Washington, DC, 00.303, 2006.
• Subduction Dynamics: From Mantle Flow to Mega Disasters, edited by Gabriele Morra, David A. Yuen, Scott D. King, Sang-Mook Lee, Seth Stein, Geophysical Monograph Series, ISBN: 978-1-118-88885-5, 210 pages, American Geophysical Union, October 2015. 

Refereed Journal Articles (since 2012)

• Fuji N, Jang H, Nakao A., Kim Y, Fernández-Blanco D, Lee S-M, Schroeder A and Konishi K. A Possible Roll-Over Slab Geometry Under the Caroline Plate Imaged by Monte Carlo Finite-Frequency Traveltime Inversion of Teleseismic SS Phases. Front. Earth Sci. 9:593947. doi: 10.3389/feart.2021.593947, 2021. 
• Eunyoung Kim, Douglas R. Toomey, Emilie E. E. Hooft, William S. D. Wilcock, Robert T. Weekly, Sang-Mook Lee, and YoungHee Kim, Upper crustal Vp/Vs ratios at the Endeavour segment, Juan de Fuca Ridge, from joint inversion of P and S travel times: Implications for hydrothermal circulation, G-Cubed, doi: 10.1029/2018GC007921, 20, 208-222, 2019.
• Sung Hyun Park, Peter J. Michael, George D. Kamenov, Sang-Mook Lee, Folkmar Hauff and Kyeong Yong Lee, Petrogenesis of basalts along the eastern Woodlark spreading center, equatorial western Pacific, LITHOS, 316-317, 122-136, 2018.
• Yoon-Mi Kim, Sang-Mook Lee, Analysis of Gravity Anomalies in the Ulleung Basin (East Sea/Sea of Japan) and Its Implications for the Crustal Structure of Rift-dominated Back-arc Basin, Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors, doi: 10.1016/j.pepi.2017.10.002, 274, 2017.
• Jonguk Kim, Sang-Joon Pak, Jai-Woon Moon, Sang-Mook Lee, Jihye Oh, Finlay M. Stuart, Mantle heterogeneity in the source region of mid-ocean ridge basalts along the northern Central Indian Ridge (8°S-17°S), Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, 18, 4, 1419-1434, doi: 10.1002/2016GC006673, 2017.
• Jae-Hyeon Parq, Sung Keun Lee, Sang-Mook Lee, Jaejun Yu, Ab Initio Study of Elastic Properties of High-Pressure Polymorphs of CO2 Phases II and V, J. Phys. Chem. C, 120 (40), 23152-23164, doi: 10.1021/acs.jpcc.6b07833, 2016.
• Young Hong Shin, C.K. Shum, Carla Braitenberg, Sang-Mook Lee, Sung -Ho Na, Kwang Sun Choi, Houtse Hsu, Young-Sue Park, Mutaek Lim, Moho topography, ranges and folds of Tibet by analysis of global gravity models and GOCE data, Scientific Reports, 5, 11681, doi:10.1038/srep11681, 2015.
• Chungwan Lim, Jaeho Jang, Insung Lee, Guebuem Kim, Sang-Mook Lee, Yeongmin Kim, Hyoungbum Kim, Alan J. Kaufman, Sulfur isotope and chemical compositions of the wet precipitation in two major urban areas, Seoul and Busan, Korea, Journal of Asian Earth Sciences, 79, 415-425, 2014.
• Byung-Dal So, David A. Yuen, Sang-Mook Lee, An efficient implicit-explicit adaptive time stepping scheme for multiple-time scale problems in shear zone development, Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems, 14, 9, 3462-3478, 2013.
• Young-Gyun Kim, Sang-Mook Lee, Young Keun Jin, Boris Baranov, Anatoly Obzhirov, Alexander Salomatin, Hitoshi Shoji, The stability of gas hydrate field in the northeastern continental slope of Sakhalin Island, Sea of Okhotsk, as inferred from analysis of heat flow data and its implications for slope failures, Marine and Petroleum Geology, 45, 198-207, 2013.