The History and Dynamics of Global Plate Motions V121

Published by the American Geophysical Union as part of the Geophysical Monograph Series, Volume 121.

The new global tectonics that emerged three decades ago profoundly changed our view of the Earth and its evolution. Although the theory of plate tectonics gives a kinematic description of much of Earth's surface motions, our dynamical understanding remains incomplete and unsatisfactory in many ways. Key remaining issues include the mechanics of plate boundaries and intraplate deformation, the relation between plate-scale dynamics and hotspot volcanism, vertical surface motions (dynamic topography) associated with subduction, and the origin of the plate-tectonic style of convection itself. The past two decades have seen fairly steady progress on a number of these problems, spurred in large part by the advent of 3-D seismic imaging of the Earth's interior. More recently, advances in high performance computing have provided long-needed 3-D geodynamic modeling tools that are yielding new insights into the relation between mantle convection and plate tectonics, and the interpretation of seismic heterogeneity structure.