Keynote and Invited Speakers

"The new mantle-circulation-based perspective to systematic understanding of transient continental-scale geologic, topographic, and stratigraphic records" Prof. Dr. Anke M. Friedrich Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, Germany

Plate Tectonics offers a top-down perspective, which revolutionized understanding of geological processes along plate boundaries, but it left unexplained the complex geological topographic, and stratigraphic records visible in intraplate regions. I propose that a mantle-based (bottom-up) perspective is required to interpret the seemingly unrelated geological and stratigraphic records of intraplate regions. This view is based on accepting the consequences of well-established whole-mantle circulation models, yielding an upper and lower thermal boundary layer that drive plate- and plume-mode, respectively. In addition to the known effects of the plate mode, vertical motion of the plume mode results in transient stresses and thermal anomalies at the base of the lithosphere, which lead to long-wavelength mechanical doming of the lithosphere, emplacement of giant radiating dike swarms, formation of narrow grabens with drainage reversals, followed by eruption of flood basalts. The earth’s surface responds in complex patterns of episodic uplift and erosion, followed by sediment transport and deposition in distant regions. As the mass anomaly is rising through the mantle, the surface uplift pattern changes systematically from long to shorter wavelength and from low to higher amplitude. Later, renewed uplift is expected as a consequence of pressure-driven asthenospheric flow as the mass anomaly dissipates. Transient surface uplift-patterns translate to episodic erosion and sediment transport, which in turn produce distinct patterns of hiatal surfaces in the stratigraphic record.  

Thus, systematic mapping of hiatal surfaces on continental- (Humboldtian) scales and at time resolution of series or stages track the earth’s mantle-motion over time.  Such event-based stratigraphic mapping on continental scales is an underutilized tool to test simulations of whole mantle circulation models. The stratigraphic record must no longer be interpreted empirically; A new generation of geological maps is needed.