280609 VO MA PE 04 VO Tectonophysics (NPI) (2015W)

The students are expected to understand the concepts of stress and strain, both in an intuitive sense and in their mathematical (tensorial) descriptions. They understand the general aspects of rheology, as are important in the macroscopic description of materials in the Earth (cracks, modern concepts of friction, elasticity, viscous and plastic behavior).

Students are expected to also understand the need for formulating models in Earth sciences, especially those for describing (global) tectonic activity and the evolution of the Earth - as well as the need for critically evaluating them using (geophysical) observational data. They have gained the basic background knowledge of the most important examples of geodynamic models describing the behavior of the lithosphere.

The students understand the main aspects of fault systems, and the structure and behavior of individual faults.

Students will also learn to present scientific material.

The course consists mainly of lectures.

The content of the course is:
Recall of mechanical bases (stress and strain again, friction, rate-and-state-dependent friction, poroelasticity).

Global tectonics (brief history, plates, plate kinematics, triple points, plate-driving forces, geodynamical processes, structure of oceanic and continental lithosphere, types of plate boundaries), subduction zones, lithospheric dynamics, rheological stratification of the lithosphere, modern constraints from global geodesy).

Mechanics of fault systems (stick-slip, creep, indicators of current and ancient strain, state of stress, World stress map, earthquake geodesy, earthquake cycle, seismotectonics, deep earthquakes, stress-loading models, modeling of regional deformation, earthquake phenomenology, earthquake statistics, regional examples).

Fault behaviour (dislocation models, earthquake mechanics, geological deformation mechanisms, postseismic relaxation, time scales of fault deformation, dilatancy- and shattering effects of earthquakes, induced seismicity)