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Tectonics

 

 

Books about tectonics

 Global Tectonics
The third edition of this widely acclaimed textbook provides a comprehensive introduction to all aspects of global tectonics, and includes major revisions to reflect the most significant recent advances in the field. A fully revised third edition of this highly acclaimed text written by eminent authors including one of the pioneers of plate tectonic theory Major revisions to this new edition reflect the most significant recent advances in the field, including new and expanded chapters on Precambrian tectonics and the supercontinent cycle and the implications of plate tectonics for environmental change Combines a historical approach with process science to provide a careful balance between geological and geophysical material in both continental and oceanic regimes.

Tectonics of Strike-Slip Restraining and Releasing Bends
Restraining and releasing bends are common, but enigmatic features of strike-slip fault systems occurring in all crustal environments and at regional to microscopic scales of observation. Regional-scale restraining bends are sites of mountain building, transpressional deformation and basement exhumation, whereas releasing bends are sites of topographic subsidence, transtensional deformation, basin sedimentation and possible volcanism and economic mineralization. Because restraining and releasing bends often occur as singular self-contained domains of complex deformation, they are appealing natural laboratories for Earth scientists to study fault processes, earthquake seismology, active faulting and sedimentation, fault and fluid-flow relationships, links between tectonics and topography, tectonic and erosional controls on exhumation, and tectonic geomorphology.

Continental Tectonics
The evolution of oceanic plates is very well described by plate tectonic theory, but the study of continental tectonics is more complicated. Continental plates have a different rheology, a greater mean age, a higher heat productivity, and are more heterogeneous in composition. An understanding of continental tectonics requires, therefore, that these effects upon rigid plate behaviour be taken into account. This book brings together a series of papers which explore various aspects of the deformation of continental lithosphere, covering different tectonic settings from the Palaeozoic to the present day. These include the processes of terrane accretion and juxtaposition, the exhumation of high-pressure terrains, and mechanisms of crustal extension and rifting. The book will be of general interest to a broad audience of earth scientists concerned with global tectonics, continental growth processes, and the deformation of the continents during collision, exhumation and extension.
Continental Tectonics and Mountain Building
The worlds mountain ranges are the clearest manifestations of long-term deformation of the continental crust. As such they have attracted geological investigations for centuries. Throughout this long history of research a few keynote publications stand out. One of the most important is the Geological Surveys 1907 Memoir on The Geological Structure of the North-West Highlands of Scotland. The Memoir summarized some of the Geological Survey's finest work, and outlined many of the principles of field-based structural and tectonic analysis that have subsequently guided generations of geologists working in other mountain belts, both ancient and modern. The thematic set of 32 papers in this Special Publication celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 1907 Memoir by placing the original findings in both historical and modern contexts, and juxtaposing them against present-day studies of deformation processes operating not only in the NW Highlands, but also in other mountain belts.
Plate Tectonics: Continental Drift and Mountain Building
How are mountains formed? Why are there old and young mountains? Why do the shapes of South America and Africa fit so well together? Why is the Pacific surrounded by a ring of volcanoes and earthquake-prone areas while the edges of the Atlantic are relatively peaceful? Frisch and Meschede and Blakey answer all these questions and more through the presentation and explanation of the geodynamic processes upon which the theory of continental drift is based and which have led to the concept of plate tectonics.
Subduction Zone Geodynamics
Subduction is a major process that plays a first-order role in the dynamics of the Earth. The sinking of cold lithosphere into the mantle is thought by many authors to be the most important source of energy for plates driving forces. It also deeply modifies the thermal and chemical structure of the mantle, producing arc volcanism and is responsible for the release of most of the seismic energy on Earth. There has been considerable achievements done during the past decades regarding the complex interactions between the various processes acting in subduction zones. This volume contains a collection of contributions that were presented in June 2007 in Montpellier (France) during a conference that gave a state of the art panorama and discussed the perspectives about "Subduction Zone Geodynamics". The papers included in this special volume offer a unique multidisciplinary picture of the recent research on subduction zones geodynamics. They are organized into five main topics: Subduction zone geodynamics, Seismic tomography and anisotropy, Great subduction zone earthquakes, Seismogenic zone characterization, Continental and ridge subduction processes. Each of the 13 papers collected in the present volume is primarily concerned with one of these topics. However, it is important to highlight that papers always treat more than one topic so that all are related lighting on different aspects of the complex and fascinating subduction zones geodynamics.