Abstract
Here, we present the the global continental hiatus surfaces since the Upper Jurassic and their links to known mantle dynamic events. For example, we tend to observe the appearance of a hiatus surface, indicating an uplift of the lithosphere, before the arrival of a mantle plume. In Europe, we mapped a large-scale sedimentary hiatus during the Paleocene (~66-56 Million years ago), prior to the arrival of the Iceland plume. We then use these maps as a constrain on mantle circulation models (MCMs), which make predictions of the history of dynamic topography. To make such comparison, we filter the modelled dynamic topography through the geological lenses and obtain the synthetic hiatus maps which are directly comparable to the true maps. By generating synthetic hiatus maps for a variety of high-resolution TERRA MCMs, we show that such maps alow for falsification or verifications of MCMs based on their prediction of dynamic uplift/subsidence events. Our results imply that a key property of time-dependent geodynamic Earth models must be a difference in timescale between mantle convection itself and resulting dynamic topography. Moreover, they highlight the importance of continental-scale compilations of geological data to map the temporal evolution of mantle flow beneath the lithosphere.
Short BioAt the end of 2019, she started her doctorate in the group of Prof. Hans-Peter Bunge and is part of the the UPLIFT research training group funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). Her research focuses on the use of geological information such as geological maps and stratigraphic studies as a way to observe, map and track changes in topography due to mantle convection. She uses these observations to verify and further develop analytical and global geodynamic models to study unknown rheological properties of the Earth's mantle.