Seminar

Significant outstanding questions in tectonics revolve around early planetary development, i.e., how and why does plate tectonics start, or not, and what precedes plate tectonics? This talk will introduce our modeling of early tectonics and plate-breaking mechanisms, and our model-testing by exploration of ancient geological records. The primary take-away is that consideration of advective heat-loss via volcanism opens a new realm of possibilities for early terrestrial body tectonic development (from vertical "heat-pipe" tectonics to plate-breaking via thermal expansion), most of which appear consistent with observations.