Geodynamics 101

The Supercontinent Cycle

Tobias Rolf and edited by Kiran Chotalia May 19, 2021

This is how the Earth’s continents may(!) have assembled into a new supercontinent in ~200 Myr from now. Note that many possible scenarios have been proposed. This one is called ‘Novopangea', but others are ‘Pangea Ultima’, ‘Amasia’ or ‘Aurica’. The color coding indicates predicted tidal amplitude at 200 Myr, where deep purple corresponds to 0 meters and bright yellow to 2 meters. (From Davies et al., 2020).

From orbital, to climatic, to tectonic evolution, many aspects of the Earth’s dynamics feature high degrees of cyclicity and episodicity, which can give us important insights into how the Earth’s works. The supercontinent cycle is an example capturing the Earth’s grandest scales and this week EGU geodynamics blog editor Tobias Rolf takes a closer look at it. Pangaea. This is a familiar term to eve ...[Read More]

The boundaries of plate modelling

Jean-Christophe Wrobel-Daveau, Graeme Nicoll and edited by Lucía Pérez-Díaz March 31, 2021

The 1977 World Ocean Floor Map created by Bruce Heezen and Marie Tharp

This weeks post is all about the importance of boundaries. Plate boundaries that is. Jean-Christophe Wrobel-Daveau and Graeme Nicoll tell us why we should care where plate boundaries are and how they evolve through time, when attempting to reconstruct past plate motions. Global plate tectonic models are an incredible way to synthesise geological knowledge to gain both direct and indirect insight i ...[Read More]

Paleogeography – A window into past mantle dynamics

Boris Robert and edited by Tobias Rolf March 3, 2021

Example of a paleogeographic reconstruction (Scotese, 2014) that shows the possible continent distribution on Earth at 201.6 Ma, featuring the supercontinent Pangea.

Paleogeography refers to the past distribution of landmasses and oceans and gives important insights into the state of previous tectonics. This is a useful cornerstone for many aspects of geodynamics and this week Boris Robert – previously postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Earth Evolution and Dynamics Oslo (Norway) and currently visiting scientist at GFZ Potsdam (Germany) – tells us how we may ...[Read More]

Rayleigh-Taylor instability in geodynamics

Dip Ghosh and edited by Jyotirmoy Paul February 17, 2021

Flow against gravity is a common feature in the geodynamic phenomenon. In this week’s Geodynamics 101, Dip Ghosh from Jadavpur University Geodynamics Lab will explain the fundamentals of Rayleigh-Taylor instability: A key to understanding the anti-gravity flow. It has long been realized that most of the geodynamic processes can be described in terms of slow viscous flow. Thus, like many othe ...[Read More]