Phone: +61 2 9036 6545
Madsen Building F09, Room 244
School of Geosciences
The University of Sydney
Sydney, NSW 2006
Australia
Research Project
Mantle convective motions are responsible for surface plate tectonics, vertical deformation of the tectonic plates (including dynamic topography) and perturbations of the Earth gravity field at the surface called geoid. The evidence for these surface processes can be found in paleomagnetic data from continental rocks. Yet, the exact response of the Earth surface topography and gravity field to internal convective motions through time is not well understood.
This Ph.D. project, which is part of the ERC Augury project (http://geologie.ens-lyon.fr/augur/), aims at using numerical mantle convection models obtained with the code StagYY (P. Tackley, 2000) with a complex rheology allowing the self-generation of realistic surface plate tectonics in order to study the produced surface dynamic topography, geoid and true polar wander.
This work will be done jointly with Pr. Nicolas Coltice, France, Dr Nicolas Flament and Pr. Dietmar Müller, Australia.
See below for EarthByte content related to Maelis.
Using a 3D numerical model of mantle convection, the authors show how a single deep mantle plume can be split into two long-lived branches by a stagnating slab in the upper mantle, producing parallel volcanic chains. This explains why the Lord Howe and Tasmantid seamount chains in the SW Pacific have stayed 650–900 km apart … Read more…
EarthByte welcomes new PhD candidate Maelis Arnould.