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SUMMARY:Reviving dead tectonic plates for insights on Earth’s surface bu
 lges and wobbly spin - Jonny Wu\, University of Houston
DTSTART:20230208T160000Z
DTEND:20230208T170000Z
UID:TALK197041@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Megan Holdt
DESCRIPTION:Mantle convection produces viscous stresses that warp Earth’
 s surface (i.e. dynamic topography). Redistribution of masses during mantl
 e convection can also alter Earth’s moment of inertia and cause Earth’
 s geographic poles to shift (i.e. True Polar Wander). These mantle convect
 ion-driven processes have undoubtedly had profound effects on sea level ch
 ange\, landscape evolution\, climate change\, and biodiversity. This study
  aims to understand how Earth’s plate tectonic history\, which exceeds >
 50% uncertainty by the mid-Cretaceous due to subduction\, affects Earth’
 s mantle convection\, dynamic topography and True Polar Wander. We build T
 OMOPAC\, a plate reconstruction that adds unsubducted slabs from mantle se
 ismic tomography for the uncertain Pacific-Panthalassan region. We incorpo
 rate TOMOPAC and a widely-used reference plate reconstruction (Matthews et
  al.\, 2016) into TERRA forward global mantle convection models to compare
  their predictions for Earth’s geoid\, present ocean dynamic topography\
 , and True Polar Wander. Preliminary results show TOMOPAC produces synthet
 ic geoids that correlate ~35% closer to Earth’s long-wavelength geoid co
 mpared to the reference plate model. We discuss the implications of altern
 ative plate tectonic histories for predicting dynamic topography and True 
 Polar Wander.
LOCATION:Wolfson Lecture Theatre (virtual)
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