Tectonics and Structural Geology

dike propagation

Features from the Field: Dikes and Sills

Samuele Papeschi and Hannah Davies May 30, 2022

Dikes and sills intruding Dalradian quartzites, Donegal, Ireland. Photo © Prof. Alan Cooper (University of Otago).

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 at La Palma, which was estimated to have a total volume of 80 million cubic me ...[Read More]

Minds over Methods: studying dike propagation in the lab

Stefano Urbani December 7, 2016

Fig 1. Fissure eruption at Bardabunga in 2014. Photo by Ragnar Th. Sigurdsson.

Have you ever thought of using gelatin in the lab to simulate the brittle-elastic properties of the Earth’s crust? Stefano Urbani, PhD student at the university Roma Tre (Italy), uses it for his analogue experiments, in which he studies the controlling factors on dike propagation in the Earth’s crust. Although we share this topic with our sister division ‘Geochemistry, Mineralogy ...[Read More]