Aïda rummages around within the lavish ball pit of rock samples as often as not, but is left unsure which rock type should be her number one: What is your favourite rock? Dear Aïda, I’ll be honest with you. Yeah, I’m surprised too… I don’t occupy myself that often with constructing countdown lists of rock types, and simply consider all rocks as equally and most important. O ...[Read More]
Can plume-lithosphere interaction initiate a modern subduction zone?
This week in News & Views, dr. Marzieh Baes from GFZ Potsdam introduces us to the mechanisms behind subduction initiation. Moreover, she discusses the different types of subduction initiation in reaction to plume-lithosphere interaction that she observed in her recent 3-d numerical modelling study. Possible scenarios of subduction initiation According to plate tectonics, oceanic plates are for ...[Read More]
Travel log – The Kenya rift
A little over a year ago, I was lucky enough to join a field trip to the Kenya rift organized by Potsdam University and Roma III. This rift is part of the active East African Rift System, which I introduced in a previous blog post. With a group of 25 enthusiastic participants from Roma Tre, Potsdam University, Nairobi University and GFZ Potsdam (we somehow always managed to make the 20-person bus ...[Read More]
50 years of plate tectonics: then, now, and beyond
Credit: Wikipedia
Even if we cannot attend all conferences ourselves, your EGU GD Blog Team has reporters that make sure all significant geodynamics events are covered. Today, Marie Bocher, postdoc at the Seismology and Wave Physics group of ETH Zürich, touches upon a recent symposium in Paris that covered one of the most important milestones of geodynamics. On the 25th and 26th of June, the Parisian Collège de Fra ...[Read More]