Journal article
Tectonic microplates in a wax model of sea-floor spreading
- Abstract:
- Rotating, growing microplates are observed in a wax analogue models of sea-floor spreading. Wax microplates are kinematically similar to sea-floor tectonic microplates in terms of spreading rate and growth rate. Furthermore, their spiral pseudofault geometry is quantitatively consistent with Schouten's oceanic microplate model. These results suggest that Schouten's edge-driven microplate model captures the kinematics of tectonic microplate evolution on Earth. Based on the wax observations, a theory for the nucleation of overlapping spreading centres, the precursors of tectonic microplates, is developed.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Version of record, bin, 554.7KB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1088/1367-2630/7/1/037
Authors
- Publisher:
- IOP Publishing
- Journal:
- New Journal of Physics More from this journal
- Volume:
- 7
- Article number:
- 37
- Publication date:
- 2005-02-01
- Edition:
- Publisher's version
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1367-2630
- Language:
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English
- Subjects:
- UUID:
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uuid:016b948a-353f-4c2f-baee-dd479354d47a
- Local pid:
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ora:4300
- Deposit date:
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2010-10-21
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- IOP Publishing Ltd and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft
- Copyright date:
- 2005
- Notes:
- Citation: Katz, R. F., Ragnarsson, R. & Bodenschatz, E. (2005). 'Tectonic microplates in a wax model of sea-floor spreading', New Journal of Physics, 7:37. [Available at http://iopscience.iop.org/1367-2630/7/1/037]. This is an Open Access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.5 licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/deed.en_GB). This licence permits third-party users to copy, distribute and display the published version of the article, and create derivative works, subject to appropriate acknowledgement of the original authors, and provided the article is not used for commercial purposes. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a licence identical to this one. For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the licence terms of this work. N.B. Dr Katz is now based at the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford.
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