Big Pressing Questions

Geodynamic Frontiers
1

Lifted from Louise:

Geodynamics grand challenges - a compilation:

  1. What is the age of the inner core?
  2. What are the light elements in the core?
  3. What creates the magnetic field and determines its strength and reversals?
  4. What is the structure of, composition of, and fluxes across, the boundary layers at the core-mantle boundary?
  5. What processes create the structures at the lowermost mantle? How long-lived are they?
  6. How do subducting slabs behave in the transition zone, and what controls their behavior?
  7. What do upwelling plumes do in the transition zone, and what controls their behavior?
  8. How does mantle convection homogenize the mantle over time?
  9. How does melting occur and concentrate at mid ocean ridges?
  10. How does melting occur and concentrate at hotspots?
  11. How does melting occur and concentrate at subduction zones?
  12. What controls the initiation of subduction? What controls rollback?
  13. What controls the rate of volatile return to the mantle at subduction?
  14. What is the volatile cycle (water, carbon) on a planetary scale?
  15. When did plate tectonics begin, and how has it changed over time?
  16. What did tectonics look like in the Archean?
  17. How did the continents form?
  18. What localizes strain in the lithosphere?
  19. What controls the evolution of topography?
  20. What controls the formation and evolution of fault systems?
  21. What controls the formation and evolution of volcanoes?
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