published_or_final_version / Earth Sciences / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

The northwest part of the North America-Caribbean plate boundary zone is characterized by active, left-lateral strike-slip faults that are well constrained seismically and are corroborated by on- and offshore geologic mapping. The onshore plate boundary zone comprises the Motogua and Polochic fault systems of southern Guatemala which join and continue offshore as the Swan Islands fault zone along the southern edge of the Cayman trough. At the Mid-Cayman spreading center in the central Caribbean Sea, the fault motion is transferred at a 100 km wide left-step in the fault system to the Oriente fault zone. A third system, the Walton fault zone, continues east from the Mid-Cayman Spreading center to define the Gonave microplate. Seafloor features produced by strike-slip faulting along the Swan Islands and Walton fault zones have been imaged and mapped using the SeaMARC II side-scan sonar and swath bathymetric mapping system, single-channel seismic data, multichannel seismic data and 3.5 kHz depth profiles. Structures mapped along the Swan Islands and Walton fault zones include: 1) twenty-six restraining bends and five releasing bends ranging in size from several kilometers in area to several hundred kilometers in area; 2)en echelon folds which occur only within the restraining bends; 3) straight, continuous fault segments of up to several tens of kilometers in length; 4) restraining and releasing bends forming in "paired" configurations; and 5) a fault-parallel fold belt fold and thrust belt adjacent to a major restraining bend. The features observed along the Swan Islands and Walton fault systems are compared to other features observed along other strike-slip fault systems, from which empirical models have previously been derived. Based on the features observed in these strike-slip systems, a rigid plate scenario is envisioned where the geometry of the fault and the direction of plate motion have controlled the types of deformation that have occurred. In a related study, microtectonic features in an area of Neogene extension within the northwestern Caribbean plate were investigated in order to provide insight on the nature of intraplate deformation related to the motion along the plate boundary. Microtectonic features were measured in the Sula-Yojoa rift of northwestern Honduras with the intention of inverting the data to estimate stress states responsible for the observed strains. Data inversion for the estimation of stress states could not be undertaken with the available measurements, however, the observations made can be used to support several existing models for the intraplate deformation as well as to encourage the elimination of other models. / text

New Guinea has long been recognized by geologists as the location of geologically recent mountain building. This study combined field mapping, stratigraphic and remote sensing analysis along and near the Gunung Bijih (Ertsberg) mine road and mining district in order to analyze the geologic development of the collisional New Guinea orogen. As a result of the youthfulness and the quality of data, it is possible to constrain distinct parts of orogenic evolution to 1 or 2 m.y. The southern Central Range of New Guinea is located on the northern Australian continental margin. The southern one-third of the Central Range, exposed along the Gunung Bijih mine access road, is a 30-km-wide, north-dipping homocline exposing an apparently 18-km-thick Precambrian or Early Paleozoic to Cenozoic sequence. Following rifting in the early Mesozoic and until the Middle Miocene, the northern Australian continent was a passive margin. The Central Range of Irian Jaya formed when the Australian passive margin was subducted beneath and collided with a north-dipping subduction zone in the Middle Miocene. Litho- and biostratigraphic analysis of the New Guinea Limestone Group in the Gunung Bijih mining district and regional stratigraphic correlation indicates that the first evidence of subaerial exposure and erosion of the orogen is the widespread deposition of siliciclastic, synorogenic strata at ~12 Ma. I name this event the Central Range Orogeny. There is no evidence of an Oligocene orogenic event in the Irian Jaya region as has been described to the east in Papuan New Guinea. Deformation in the Central Range is dominated by ~12 to ~4 Ma southwest verging (210°-220°) contraction and minor east-west wrenching. This deformation is equally accommodated, there is no evidence for strain partitioning in the Central Range. Lithospheric-scale cross sections, incorporating field observations, predict the Central Range Orogeny is divided into a pre-collision and collisional stage. The pre-collision stage is the bulldozing of passive margin sediments in a north dipping subduction zone. The collision stage occurs when buoyant Australian lithosphere can not be subducted. The collision stage results in basement involved deformation and lithospheric delamination of the already subducted Australian plate. / text

Not available / text

An analytic boundary layer model for thermal convection with a finite-strength plate and depth-dependent viscosity is developed. The model includes a specific energy balance for the lithosphere and accounts for coupling between the plate and underlying mantle. Multiple solutions are possible with three solution branches representing three distinct modes of thermal convection. One branch corresponds to the classic boundary layer solution for active lid plate tectonics while two new branches represent solutions for sluggish lid convection. The model is compared to numerical simulations with highly temperature dependent viscosity and is able to predict both the type of convection (active, sluggish, or stagnant lid) as well as the presence of single and multiple solution regimes. The existence of multiple solutions suggests that the mode of planetary convection may be history dependent. The dependence of mantle viscosity on temperature and water concentration is found to introduce a strong dynamic feedback with plate tectonics. A dimensionless parameter is defined to quantitatively evaluate the relative strength of this feedback and demonstrates that water and heat transport may be equally important in controlling present-day platemantle dynamics for the Earth. A simple parameterized evolution model illustrates the feedback and agrees well with our analytic results. This suggests that a simple relationship may exist between the rate of change of water concentration and the rate of change of temperature in the mantle. This study concludes by investigating the possibility of a magnetic field dynamo in early solar system planetesimals. The thermal evolution of planetesimals is modeled by considering melting, core formation, and the onset of mantle convection and then employing thermal boundary layer theory for stagnant lid convection (if possible) to determine the cooling rate of the body. We assess the presence, strength and duration of a dynamo for a range of planetesimal sizes and other parameters. We find that a minimum radius of O(500) km is required for a thermally driven dynamo of duration O(10) My. The dependence of the results on model parameters is made explicit through the derivation of an analytic solution. / Earth and Planetary Sciences

The volatile inventories of the Earth and Moon reflect unique histories of volatile acquisition and loss in the early Solar System. The terrestrial volatile inventory was established after the giant impact phase of accretion, and the planet subsequently settled into a regime of long-term volatile exchange between the mantle and surface reservoirs in association with plate tectonics. Therefore, volatiles in the Earth and Moon shed light on a diverse array of processes that shaped planetary bodies in the Solar System as they evolved to their present-day states. / Earth and Planetary Sciences

Not available / text

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.