Slab tearing refers to the gradual propagation of the break-off of a subducting plate. As observed in numerous modern and ancient convergent tectonic settings, the growth of the tear “window” in the downgoing plate has strongly influenced various geologic and geodynamic processes, such as depocenter migration of foreland basins, uplift rates in mountain ranges, earthquakes, volcanism, and flow pat ...[Read More]
Our neighbouring planet Venus is gaining popularity in the terrestrial planetary sciences, especially since the selection of three new Venus missions by NASA and ESA in 2021. Now, for the first time ever, scientists have directly observed surface changes that indicate active volcanism on Venus. This discovery was made with data from NASA’s 30-year-old Magellan mission and is only a small preview f ...[Read More]
The fundamental of Space Geodesy is the observation of the dynamics of the Earth, such as its rotation on its axis, changes in shape, and the external gravitational field etc., which allow for the monitoring of the Earth system in general. Space Geodetic techniques, such as Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) / Global Positioning System (GPS), as well as Interferometric Synthetic Aperture R ...[Read More]
A voyage between different tectonic modelling worlds: from sandbox to supercomputer
How can we determine a ‘safe operating space’ for humanity? In this week’s blog, Professor Ilan Kelman from University College London shares his thoughts about Planetary boundaries, and whether this framework will be successful for the next generations to come. The planetary boundaries framework (Rockström et al. 2009ab; Steffen et al. 2015) might be useful for communicating some of humanity’s im ...[Read More]
Northeast Asia may be one of the best natural laboratories to investigate both arc and intraplate volcanisms which have developed since the mid-Miocene. The arc volcanoes have occurred above the sinking young (Philippine) and old (Pacific) oceanic plates in Southwest and Northeast Japan subduction zones, respectively. The intraplate volcanoes across the Korean Peninsula and China have occurred abo ...[Read More]
Iris and Menno have made fantastic science movie recommendations in the past couple of years – covering the base for bad-science movies. Since the AGU frenzy is finally over and the upcoming holidays beckon us, I went in a different direction and prepared a list of some of my feel-good holiday movies. 1. The Little Prince This is a fantasy movie based on a popular children’s book. The movie is cen ...[Read More]
The study of the mantle aids in our understanding of the Earth’s tectonic evolution. In this week’s news and views, honours student Mr. Robert Marks shares his thoughts. Mr. Marks received his Bachelors (Hons) degree from the University of Wollongong under the supervision of Dr Nicolas Flament. The Earth’s mantle is filled with subducted slabs, which are remnants of tectonic plates tha ...[Read More]
Magnets are cool, who does not like them? And the planet that we live in, the Earth, itself is a huge magnet. Not only does the Earth’s magnetic field protect us from harmful radiation from space, but it can also help us reveal some of the secrets of our planet. Local variations in the magnetic field can be used to probe the subsurface of the Earth from crustal to mantle depths. Although there is ...[Read More]
Schematic illustrating core components of G-ADOPT, an Australian based cross-NCRIS project, principally developed at the Australian National University (ANU), with partners at the University of Sydney and Imperial College London. G-ADOPT is supported by the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC), with co-investment from AuScope, the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) and Geosciences Aust ...[Read More]