Subduction zones are areas where one tectonic plate dives beneath another one and sinks into the Earth’s mantle, creating powerful earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Understanding the intricate details of subduction zones can be a daunting task, and retrieving the necessary data often feels like an uphill battle. But fear not! The Geosciences Montpellier Laboratory in …[Read More]
Tectonics and Structural Geology
Features from the Field: Columnar Basalts and why Hexagons are nature’s favourite shape
What does an insect eye, Saturn’s North pole, beeswax, and a rock formation called columnar basalts all have in common? They are all hexagonal in shape. Why is this the case? Hexagons are the most efficient way to fill a space with the least amount of material The science of bubbles and bubble sculptures is …[Read More]
The ECS TS team and their activities between GAs (2022-2023)
The EGU Tectonics and Structural geology Early Career Scientist representative team continues to grow, and as it grows, the activities it conducts during and between GAs also grows. In the lead up to EGU 23 here we show some of those activities. We are also looking for the next member of the ECS representative team! …[Read More]
Geomythology. Giant’s Causeway: the mythical stone way
Ireland is famous for retaining a rich heritage of folk tales, which are thousands of years old. They tell stories about great heroes, wars and loves, fantastic creatures such as leprechauns, fairies, banshees, giants and so on. Among them, there is a Middle Earth time myth, concerning a “small” giant, named Finn McCool, who built …[Read More]
TS Must-Read – Cannat et al. (2006) Modes of seafloor generation at a melt-poor ultraslow-spreading ridge
For the first time in 2006 Cannat and co-workers described a smooth seafloor type in the mid-ocean ridge located in the SW Indian Ocean (SWIR). The 660-km-long off-axis bathymetry, gravity, and magnetic dataset presented in the study lies near the Rodrigues triple junction (RTJ in Fig. 1). The must read paper expanded the previous conceptual …[Read More]
TS Must Read – Spatio-temporal evolution of strain accumulation derived from multi-scale observations of Late Jurassic rifting in the northern North Sea: A critical test of models for lithospheric extension, Cowie et al. (2005)
Cowie et al. (2005) is an exciting “must-read” for any geologist interested in rift systems. It examines strain accumulation and extension within a rift basin and scrutinizes model predictions with field observations. The authors highlight two sets of models, the first set of models uses brittle deformation to explain extension (e.g., King et al., 1988; …[Read More]
TS Must read – Wortel and Spakman (2000), Subduction and slab detachment in the Mediterranean-Carpathian region
The must read paper Wortel & Spakman (2000) uses seismic tomography models showing the three-dimensional upper mantle velocity structure of the Mediterranean-Carpathian region to hypothesize lithospheric processes related to slab detachment, and particularly, the lateral migration of the detachment along plate boundaries (Fig. 1). The paper defends that this process is a key control in …[Read More]
Geomythology. The Sicilian Trilogy – Part III: The Cyclopes, the Skeletons, and the Dwarfs Elephants
Strangers, who are you? Where do sail from? Are you traders, or do you sail the as rovers, with your hands against every man, and every man’s hand against you?” … “Stranger, you are a fool, or else you know nothing of this country. Talk to me, indeed, about fearing the gods or shunning their …[Read More]
TS Must-Read – Yin and Harrison (2000) Geologic evolution of the Himalaya-Tibetan Orogen
Yin and Harrison (2000) puts together an exhaustive review of three decades of geological and geophysical investigations on the Himalayan-Tibetan orogen. This research supports the orogenesis started during the Cenozoic between 70 and 50 Ma ago as a consequence of the Indo-Asian collision following the closure of the Tethys ocean between Laurasia and Gondwana. Yin …[Read More]
Geomythology. The Sicilian Trilogy – Part II: Vulcano, Vulcan’s forge
Why is a fork actually called fork? And why are volcanoes actually called volcanoes? While I do not have any reply for the first question, I have one for the second… and with a quite interesting story. The Earth currently has around 1350 potentially active volcanoes, aside from the volcanoes along the spreading centres (USGS …[Read More]