CAS Einstein Professor Rob Van der Voo, professor of University of Michigan and member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, is giving a lecture on geo-tectonics this Thursday at ITP.

Venue: Room 912 of ITP Beijing

Time: 2.00 pm, Thursday, May 31, 2012

Title: Linking Deep Mantle Processes with Surface Plate Motion

Presenter: Rob Van der Voo (http://www.lsa.umich.edu/UMICH/earth/Home/People/CVs/VanderVoo_CV_Nov2010.pdf )

Abstract:

After a review of upper mantle features and how they relate to surface plate tectonics, special attention is given to the deeper mantle. Major upwelling patterns, departing from the edges of two antipodal LLSVPs (Large Low Shearwave Velocity Provinces), are associated with hotspot and plume features that leave their signatures as Large Igneous Provinces (LIPs) in the Earth’s crust. Torsvik et al. (Nature Geoscience 466, July 15, 2010) have demonstrated that 80% of all diamondiferous kimberlites with ages of 320 - 0 Ma are also found above the edges of the LLSVPs, with the continental positions being fully constrained in a lower-mantle framework by paleomagnetic data, LIPs, True Polar Wander episodes, and seismic velocity anomalies from tomography. For the Paleozoic Era before 320 Ma, the continental positions have until now remained unconstrained in longitude, as is well known for paleomagnetic results, whereas LIPS, TPW and tomography are of little or no help. However, using the assumption that kimberlites with ages of 540 – 320 Ma must have originated above the edges of the LLSVPs, one can constrain continental paleolongitudes in the Paleozoic. In so doing, we obtain global reconstructions that are of great interest for paleogeography, paleoclimate models and tectonic analysis of Paleozoic plate motions.

Your participations are warmly welcome!