中科大地球与行星物理学术报告通知-Walter D. Mooney

报告人简介：

Prof. Walter D. Mooney is a research geophysicist with the Earthquake Science Center of the US Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California, USA. His research interests include earthquakes, tsunamis, hazards reduction, and the structure and evolution of the Earth’s lithosphere and the mantle transition zone. His H-index is 81, with 25,000 citations. He is a Fellow of the AGU and GSA, Honorary

Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society (London), and is an Academician (Foreign Member) of the Academia Europaea.

摘要：

I summarize the physical properties and evolution of crust and mantle lithosphere as a function of crustal age. (1) Precambrian crust (4.0 to 0.5 Ga) constitutes 54% of the continental crust Phanerozoic crust (0.5 Ga to present) is 46% by area. Much of the Precambrian crust has either been subducted back into the mantle (destroyed) or reworked to form the younger Phanerozoic crust. (2) Crust less than 250 million years old stands out as having highly unique properties, including the local presence of partial melting in the middle and lower crust. (3) The slow and steady changes of the Earth’s continental crust indicates a more silica-rich composition for the oldest crust. (4) Thick (>170 km) lithosphere beneath Archean, Paleoproterozoic and Mesoproterozoic crust define the cratonic nuclei, the long-lived, stable building blocks of continental crust.