Tectonic Reconstruction using Pplates at RSES
Pplates is open source software developed at RSES as part of the ACcESS MNRF. Pplates uses 2D deformable meshes to move plates and associated data in a 3D Earth, allowing effects such as extension, shortening and tearing to be taken into account. Researchers use this reconstruction technology to introduce basic geodynamics (e.g. isostasy) into tectonic reconstruction.
| The following staff members are involved in the development of Pplates at RSES. | |||
| Prof. Gordon Lister | Web Page | ||
| Joe Kurtz | Web Page | ||
| Marie-Aude Bonardot | Web Page | ||
Current Research projects
Google Earth image of the Sumatra-Sagaing wrench system
Tectonic reconstruction of the Sumatra-Sagaing wrench system
The collision of India and Asia resulted in the identation of India into Asia. At the same time the IndoAustralian plate to the east began to founder, and the subduction hinge began to retreat southward and westward. Transfer faults developed at the eastern margin, and these developed into subduction zones that in turn began to founder, creating westward migrating subduction hinges over which the collapsing Indonesian crust has now (in part) flowed. The Sumatra-Sagaing wrench fault system marks a right-lateral mobile fault boundary in the Indonesian crust that partitions deformation related to relative 'plate' movement, separating the ribbon at the convergent plate margin from the arc-normal flowing mobile interior. Relative plate motion means that in places this wrench system is transpressional (e.g. in Myanmar) whereas in other places it is transtensional (e.g. in the Andaman Sea). The continual westward flow of Indonesian crust results in considerable distortion of this geometry, and this means the wrench system must keep on re-inventing itself to accommodate relative plate motion.
The advent of datasets such as produced by the Shuttle
Radar Thematic Mapper means that considerably more detail as to the evolution
of this wrench system can now be inferred, and a tectonic reconstruction
using Pplates is underway, with the intent to reconcile information inferred
from the study of the evolving geometry of this wrench system with data
inferred from centroid moment tensor data, and geodetic measurements
of displacement, thus linking present day motions with those inferred
for the immediate past.