date: 2012 March 7 (Wed) 15:00-16:00
room: CPS Conference Room
speaker: Shintaro Azuma (Hiroshima University)
organizer: Ayako Suzuki
title: Strength contrast between plagioclase and olivine and its significance on rheological structure of Earth and Venus
abstract: The plate tectonics is one of the most important mechanism of heat transport and material circulation of the Earth. However, the Magellan mission revealed that plate tectonics is unlikely to work on the Venus. Its absence might cause the different tectonic evolution between Earth and Venus. Here, the rock rheology is related to the plate tectonics deeply. Rheological structure of planet is a key to inferring mantle structure and convection style of planet interiors because the rock rheology controls strength and deformation mechanism. In this study, we conduct two-phase deformation experiments to directly investigate rheological contrast between plagioclase (crust) and olivine (mantle) using solid-medium deformation apparatus and discuss the difference between these planets in terms of rheological behaviors.
keywords: olivine, plagioclase, strength contrast, Venus