Tectonics and Structural Geology

GeoMod 2021 in Utrecht: connecting on-site and online

Hanneke Heida and Elenora van Rijsingen September 27, 2021

Group picture of the on-site participants of GeoMod 2021 in front of the venue Landgoed Zonheuvel. Credit: the GeoMod organisers.

After a year and a half in which all of us have had to become accustomed to meeting our colleagues and collaborators only in digital space, it was finally time for an in-person conference again. From 19-23 of September 2021, the ninth edition of GeoMod took place in a conference center outside sunny Utrecht (the Netherlands). The organizing committee, led by Ernst Willingshofer, Ylona van Dinther, ...[Read More]

The Makran accretionary wedge: an ideal natural laboratory to study accretionary processes.

Jonas Ruh June 16, 2020

Lower Miocene turbiditic (layered shale and sandstone) sequences of the Makran acretionary wedge. Credits: Jonas Ruh.

How does an accretionary wedge form? For this edition of Minds over Methods, we have invited Jonas Ruh, lecturer in the Structural Geology and Tectonics group of the Geological Institute at the Department of Earth Sciences, ETH Zürich, to tell us about the Makran accretionary wedge, one of the largest on Earth. He explains how the use of field observations and numerical modelling helped him to bet ...[Read More]

Meeting Plate Tectonics – Dietmar Müller

David Fernández-Blanco April 2, 2019

Credit: Grotzinger, J. and Jordan, T. (2014). Understanding Earth. [Plate boundaries by Peter Bird, UCLA]

These blogposts present interviews with outstanding scientists that bloomed and shape the theory that revolutionised Earth Sciences — Plate Tectonics. Get to know them, learn from their experience, discover the pieces of advice they share and find out where the newest challenges lie! Meeting Dietmar Müller Dietmar Müller is Professor of Geophysics at the University in Sydney and leads the EarthByt ...[Read More]

Minds over Methods: Reconstruction of salt tectonic features

Michael Warsitzka April 12, 2017

credit: Michael Warsitzka

What is the influence of salt tectonics on the evolution of sedimentary basins and how can we reconstruct such salt features? Michael Warsitzka, PhD student at the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, explains which complementary methods he uses to better understand salt structures and their relation to sedimentary basins. Enjoy! Reconstruction of salt tectonic features from analogue mode ...[Read More]

Minds over Methods: Sensing Earth’s gravity from space

Anita Saraswati February 8, 2017

GOCE in space orbit. (Source: ESA)

How can we learn more about the Earth’s interior by going into space? This edition of Minds over Methods discusses using satellite data to study the Earth’s lithospere. Anita Thea Saraswati, PhD student at the University of Montpellier, explains how information on the gravity of the Earth is obtained by satellites and how she uses this information to get to know more about the lithospe ...[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]

Minds over Methods: Numerical modelling

Anouk Beniest September 21, 2016

Minds over Methods is the second category of our T&S blog and is created to give you some more insights in the various research methods used in tectonics and structural geology. As a numerical modeller you might wonder sometimes how analogue modellers scale their models to nature, or maybe you would like to know more about how people use the Earth’s magnetic field to study tectonic processes. ...[Read More]