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]
Tectonics and Structural Geology
The ECS TS team, and their activities between GAs
As member of the EGU Tectonics and Structural Geology (TS) Early Career Scientist (ECS) Representative team, and with the outlook of the first hybrid EGU General Assembly (GA), I take the opportunity to highlight some of the activities and news of the ECS TS team. The ECS TS team has been very active all year …[Read More]
Features from the Field: Dikes and Sills
Volcanoes are everywhere along plate margins and on hot spots on the planet’s surface. Just in the past 2 years, we have witnessed enormous explosive eruptions such as that of the Hunga Tonga volcano which released an amount of energy equivalent to hundreds of atomic bombs, and massive lava flows, as at the Cumbre Vieja …[Read More]
TS Must-Read – Brun (1999): Narrow rifts versus wide rifts: inferences for the mechanics of rifting from laboratory experiments
In 1999 Jean-Pierre Brun published his Must-Read paper about rifting, in which he reviews fifteen years of laboratory experiments at Geosciences Rennes. In a brief introduction the paper reminds the reader of the two main rift types: narrow rifting as the preceding stage for continental break-up, and wide rifting that occurs after cessation of convergence. …[Read More]
TS Must Read – Scholz (1998): Earthquakes and friction laws
Scholz (1998) is the “must-read” review article about rate- and state- variable laws of rock friction. The article is a robust introduction to the state-of-the art of the discipline at the end of the past century and should be considered of particular interest for students and/or early career scientists. In spite of its relative simplicity, …[Read More]
Features from the Field: Snow illuminates fault zones
This guest post was contributed by Afroz Shah who is an Assistant Professor of Structural Geology at the Department of Geosciences, Universiti of Brunei Darussalam (UBD). He has completed Ph.D at James Cook University, Australia in 2010, post-doctorate at Earth Observatory of Singapore in 2013 and joined the first academic job as a Senior Lecture …[Read More]
TS Must-Read – Cowie (1998) A healing-reloading feedback control on the growth rate of seismogenic faults
This study provides a simple numerical model of fault rupture that describes the development of fault systems from the initial nucleation of numerous small faults to the localisation of deformation into few major faults. The model presented is based on two main considerations: first, earthquakes cause stress changes that can either advance or delay failure …[Read More]
Geomythology. The Sicilian Trilogy – Part I: Persephone on the endorheic Pergusa lake
If, in 2022, you still think that seasons depend on the Earth’s rotation around its tilted axis and around the Sun… you are surely right. However, in ancient times, the Greeks, and the Romans afterwards, thought it was due to an agreement between Zeus and Hades, to save Persephone from the Underworld. The sick love …[Read More]
TS Must Read paper – Foreland Basin Systems, DeCelles & Giles (1996)
Foreland Basin Systems, by DeCelles and Giles (1996), expands the concept of foreland basin into the more comprehensive and integrative concept of foreland basin systems. Foreland basin systems can be defined, as per this TS must-read paper, as compressional regions where various tectonic forces lead to flexural responses of a variable wavelength, which may in …[Read More]
TS Must-Read – Caine et al., 1996 Fault zone architecture and permeability structure
Caine et. al. (1996) is a cornerstone paper which describes, compares and quantifies brittle fault zones and their permeability (fluid flow) properties from observations. Doing so, the paper initiates the accumulation of information on the permeability of brittle fault zones described previously (Randolph and Johnson 1989; Scholz 2019; Byerlee 1993). The study begins by defining …[Read More]