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Geodynamics

News & Views

What controlled the evolution of Plate Tectonics on Earth?

August 14, 2019
Great Unconformity - Immensity River, Grand Canyon
The Great Unconformity–boundary between Lower Paleozoic and Proterozoic rocks indicating the global surface erosion event following Snowball Glaciations that might have kick-started the contemporary phase of active plate tectonics. Photo of the Grand Canyon, Immensity River, Colorado (public domain).

Plate tectonics is a key geological process on Earth, shaping its surface, and making it unique among the planets in the Solar System. Yet, how plate tectonics emerged and which factors controlled its evolution remain controversial. The recently published paper in Nature by Sobolev and Brown suggests new ideas to solve this problem…. What makes plate tectonics possible on contemporary Earth? It is ...[Read More]

Searching for future directions in tectonic modelling

August 2, 2019
Searching for future directions in tectonic modelling
Searching for future directions in tectonic modelling. Boundary images by domdomegg - Own work, CC BY 4.0, in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_tectonics.

Geoscientists frequently use forward geodynamic simulations to test hypotheses derived from geophysical and geologic observations. While numerical simulations of lithospheric deformation have lead to key advances in our understanding of tectonic processes, in many cases it remains difficult to ascertain whether numerical models reproduce observations for the correct underlying regions.  This week, ...[Read More]

Let’s talk about plagiarism

July 17, 2019
Let’s talk about plagiarism

Hey you! Do you have 5 minutes to talk about plagiarism? Have you ever wondered if some parts of a thesis that you have supervised are simply a copy-paste from another thesis or article? This week, an anonymous guest author will tell us about their personal experience with plagiarism in science and what can be done against it. Granted, it is not the most fascinating topic. Until recently, I really ...[Read More]

Production and recycling of Archean continental crust

June 19, 2019
Production and recycling of Archean continental crust
Beautiful swirly mantle. What kind of secrets are hidden here?

Continents are essential for the development and survival of life on Earth. However, as surprising as it may sound, there did not exist a planetary scale numerical model to show the formation of the oldest continents until the recent study ‘Growing primordial continental crust self-consistently in global mantle convection models‘ in Gondwana Research by Jain et al., 2019. Hot off the p ...[Read More]