PLATE TECTONICS

Reading: Ch. 3,4(skim),7  from WEG
This site is very large, but has interesting movies showing seismic waves passing through the mantle.  Click here to see one of the movies that shows waves passing through a homogeneous mantle
Here's one with the actual velocity variations in the mantle

Tu 20 Seismology and active tectonics       homework #1 due; homework #3 handed out -- gravity anomalies

LAB: Analysis of paleomag data   skim Ch 6 and 7 of Butler

Tu 27  Geodesy and Plate Kinematics  homework #3 due

Reading:  Keller and Pinter on Geodesy;
go here for maps of SLR velocities; and here for GPS data
This page has some great descriptions of Euler poles and how they are determined

LAB:Paleomag presentations 

Th 29 Heat Flow

Reading: Ch. 10 in WEG

FEBRUARY

Reading:  158-168 in WEG; p. 104-116 in Tectonics by Moores and Twiss; http://geosci.geol.ucsb.edu/~ken/sciam.html

Have a look at these sonar images of the sea floor topography near some famous MORs

North Atlantic MOR
East Pacific Rise MOR
EPR Tomography

LAB: Marine Magnetic Anomalies (check out this nice global view) 

Tu 5 Subduction Zones -- the Seismic View

Reading :168-171 in WEG;  Lithgow-Bertollini's web page
Tomography of the Tonga trench
3-D view of Fiji subduction zone with detached slab
Farallon Plate cross section
paper on the Farallon slab
Where within the subducting slab do the earthquakes occur?  Here are results from the Andes (map) (cross-section)
Nice 3-D views of subduction zones at this site

Where are all those old slabs? Prospecting for Jurassic Slabs (short article)

Reading: Ch 7 from Tectonics, by Moores and Twiss; read articles by  Smith et al  and Silver and Russo
Study this generalized model of a subduction zone

LAB: Experiments with paraffin models of sea-floor spreading 

Th 12 The End of Subduction:  Collisions and Mountain-Building

Reading: 171-179 in WEG; Ch 9 from Tectonics by Moores and Twiss

Reading: Ch 10,11 in Dynamic Earth;

On the Web: Model of the History of Convection

Lower Mantle Tomography -- implications for convection models

Kellogg's lava lamp model;

LAB: Experiments with convection.  Read Ch 8 in Dynamic Earth;  Visit these sites to see a variety of convection modeling results:  Minnesota, Caltech, ANU 

Th 19  Synthesis: The Driving Mechanism   homework #3 due

Reading:  Ch 12 in Dynamic Earth ; new analysis of driving forces, a novel view by a famous iconoclast

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Tu 24 Whole Mantle Chemistry and Convection [SECOND PAPER DUE]

Reading: Ch. 13 in Dynamic Earth

LAB:Modeling the growth of continents, pt. I

Th 26 Evolution of Plate Tectonics: The Precambrian

Reading: Ch. 14 in Dynamic Earth

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MARCH

Tu 2 Precambrian Tectonics: True Polar Wander  Adam Maloof guest speaker (date still tentative)

Reading: TBA

LAB:Modeling the growth of continents, pt. II

Th 4 Plate Tectonics of Venus and Mars

Reading: TBA

Tu 9 Group Reports

About This Class: Plate Tectonics is the dominant paradigm in the Earth Sciences -- it is the set of theories and hypotheses that collectively explain the dynamics of the solid earth. It accounts for why and where earthquakes and volcanoes occur, where mountains occur, the sizes and shapes and distributions of the oceans and continents. Plate Tectonics is a relatively young paradigm and is still developing; there are still quite a few unknowns, making it an exciting field of study. This class will examine the current status of the plate tectonic paradigm as well as the historical development, which involves one of the best examples of a scientific revolution. The class will emphasize processes and the results of these processes in order to enable the reverse process of trying to infer past tectonic processes from the geologic record. The class will also emphasize the use of seismology, gravity, and rock magnetics to learn things about the interior of the Earth and its connection to the surficial motions of plates.

Papers: You will write 2 short papers (4-5 pages) during the term; one will be an analysis of the arguments and ideas of someone who does not (or did not) accept the conventional model of plate tectonics; the other will take the form of a proposal to investigate some important unsolved problem in tectonics. I recommend that, beginning now, you try to keep these paper topics in mind -- this should make the task of figuring out what to write about easier.

Learn to Use the Library: You'll have to do a fair amount of library research for the group report (we'll have a brief lesson on how to use Georef and Web of Science, the two main literature search engines) and it is a good idea to become familiar with some of the journals in the Science Library. Some of the more important journals for Tectonics are: Nature, Science (these two come out weekly and are generally where the latest, most important discoveries are reported), Geology (emphasis on new ideas), Journal of Geophysical Research (vast), Tectonophysics, Tectonics, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, and the Geological Society of America Bulletin. Things are always developing rapidly in Tectonics, and you will often find some important new results or hypotheses presented in the current issues of these journals. You'll also need to learn some things about how to read scientific papers; I'll describe the strategy in class.