MICHAEL MANGA

The catalog description reads: ``Basic principles in studying the physical properties of earth materials and the dynamic processes of the earth. Examples are drawn from tectonics, mechanics or earthquakes, etc., to augment course material.'' From the more detailed outline below, it will be apparent that the emphasis is on the dynamics of geological and geophysical processes, rather than properties of earth materials.

The outline below also contains a list of topics to be covered and reading assignments (and suggested supplementary reading). Homework assignments will sometimes be posted as pdf files in this outline too.

Class meeting times:

Formal lectures are held Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 9 am - 10 am in McCone 401 (though the room may change). There can be a discussion section (time to be arranged) to review basic math, and discuss progress with term projects.

Prerequisites:

EPS 60 and Physics 7a; or Math 53, 54; or permission of instructor

Text and notes:

D.L. Turcotte and G. Schubert, Geodynamics, 2nd edition, Cambridge University Press, 2002 (prices on amazon.com and bn.com are $61.62 for the paperback edition)

I will also refer to Schubert et al. (Mantle Convection), Davies (Geodynamics) and Cox and Hart (Plate tectonics). These other 3 books will be placed on reserve in the Earth Science library
The course will follow the structure of Turcotte and Schubert quite closely.

Instructor:

• Michael Manga (3-8532), McCone 177, office hours MWF 10 am - 11 am (after class)
• manga@seismo
• GSI/reader: to be determined

• Homework 35 %
• THREE Midterms and final exam 35 %
• Term paper/project and presentation 30 % -- provide a topic and abstract BEFORE March 7

Term project:

The term project should address some topic or issue in geodynamics. Ideally the topic is not one covered in class because during the last week of class you will present (in 5 minutes!) an overview of your term project to the class. You are encouraged to think more broadly than simply reviewing the literature -- you could outline an approach to addressing an unresolved question, actaully solve a problem, perform some numerical calculations, do some lab experiments . . . . You will need to submit an abstract of your project -- in the form of an AGU abstract -- by April 12. Please go to AGU homepage) to see examples of abstracts. Please also see other guides for writing abstracts. The final term project will be submitted in a format and length similar to Geophysical Research Letters papers. Templates and length limitations for these papers be downloaded by the journal homepage (follow links from AGU homepage)

Please note: The first day of lectures will be January 20

Outline

Weeks 1 and 2 (January 20, 22, 25, 27 and 29): Plate tectonics

• Introduction to geodynamics and plate tectonics
• Types of plate boundaries, triple junctions, Euler poles, plate tectonics on a sphere
• Homework 1 due Friday, January 29 (distributed in class), Homework 2 due Friday, February 5
• Reading:
• Turcotte and Schubert, Chapter 1
• Much of the lecture materials come from, and the basis for the homework exercises is, Plate tectonics: How it works by Cox and Hart, Blackwell, 1986; this book will be put on reserve in the Earth Science library
• A couple books that describe the history behind, and people who developed, plate tectonics ideas: Oreskes, Plate tectonics: An insider's history of the modern theory of the Earth, Westview Press, 2001; Menard, The Ocean of Truth, Princeton University Press, 1980.
• A few short and classic papers:
• Seafloor magnetic anomalies: Vine and Matthews (1963) Nature, vol. 199, 947
• Mantle plumes: Morgan (1971) Nature, vol. 230, 42-43; Wilson (1963) Canadian J. Physics, vol. 41, 863-870
• Plate tectonics: McKenzie and Parker (1967) Nature, vol. 216, 1276-1280; Morgan (1968) J. Geophys. Res., vol. 73, 1959-1982
• Wilson cycle: Wilson (1966) Nature, vol. 211, 676-681
• Some additional references:
• Illustration of spherical harmonics
• We will not cover core dynamics and geomagnetism in much detail (EPS 122 often does, however); check out this Geomagnetism web site for lots of nice images, good explanations, freeware, and datasets
• A fantastic mapping site (you can plot topography, plate velocities, strain rate, stress, volcanoes, earthquakes, geoid, gravity, all with a couple clicks of your mouse): Unavco mapping tool. The junior option is exceptionally easy to use.

• Force, stress and pressure
• Strain and strain rate
• Elastic deformation
• Bending and buckling of plates
• Dynamics of basins
• Reading: Turcotte and Schubert, Chapters 2-3
• Homework 3 due February 12 (homework set will distributed in class)
• Homework 4 due February 26 (homework set will distributed in class)

• Fourier's law
• Steady and unsteady heat transfer, moving boundaries
• Reading: Turcotte and Schubert, Chapter 4
• Homework 5 due March 1 (homework set will distributed in class)
• Homework 6 due March 5 (homework set will distributed in class)
• A reading suggestion (recall you reading assignments): Huang, Pollack, and Shen (2000) Temperature trends over the past five centuries reconstructed from borehole temperature, Nature, vol. 403: 756-758.
• For data, maps, and other good links, check out the International Heat Flow Commission IHFC

Weeks 7.5-9 (March 3, 5, 8, 10, 12, 15, 17 and 19 with midterm on March 10)  Fluid Mechanics and MIDTERM 1

• Channel flows, plumes, thermal convection
• Numerical simulations of mantle convection
• A few photographs from lab experiments can be found on Manga's lab page.
• Reading: Turcotte and Schubert, Chapter 6
• Homework 7 due March 17 (homework set will distributed in class)
• Homework 8 due March 19 (homework set will distributed in class)
• Homework 9 due April 2 (homework set will distributed in class will be based on a lab experiment you do IN CLASS)
• MIDTERM on March 10

• How and why other planets are different from the Earth?
• Reading: Chapter 14 (pages 633-763) in Schubert, Turcotte and Olson, Mantle Convection, Cambridge University Press, 2001 (this book will be on reserve in the Earth Science library)
• Reading: Turcotte and Schubert, Chapter 5

• Deformation of the Earth (EPS 122 covers this topic in much more detail)
• Gravity anomalies
• Reading: Turcotte and Schubert, Chapter 5

• Darcy's law
• Aquifers
• Geothermal systems
• Magma migration
• Homework 10 due April 16 (homework set will distributed in class)
• Reading: Turcotte and Schubert, Chapter 9 (I think this is a very nice discussion of flow in porous media)

• Diffusion and dislocation creep
• Rheological models
• Friction and faulting
• MIDTERM on March 10
• Homework 11 due April 30 (homework set will distributed in class)
• Reading: Turcotte and Schubert, Chapters 7-8

• Field trip to Alum Rock State Park, April 30
• Presentations, 5 minutes each!
• TERM PROJECT DUE ON THE DATE OF THE SCHEDULED FINAL EXAM

• Peter Bird's plate boundaries
• Global Earth data sets including topography, earthquake data, gravity, plate motions, seafloor ages, volcanism data, sediment thickness, world stress map, and seismic hazard; list and links compiled by Thorsten Becker at Harvard University
• International Heat Flow Commission IHFC

 



Cartoon created by Helge Gonnerman (from Jellinek and Manga, Reviews of Geophysics, 2005), showing some of the structures that might exist and processes that might occur within the mantle.