Research: Subduction Processes
Current research is increasingly showing the importance of regions of tectonic convergence in controlling both plate tectonics and deep seated convection within the Earth. I am interested in processes relating to subduction, and in particular how this relates to our understanding of deformation, rheology, and plate tectonics.
Current Project: The Mechanisms of Deep Earthquakes
With Dan McKenzie and Keith Priestley, both of the University of Cambridge, I am presently working to improve our knowledge of Deep Focus Earthquakes. Despite having been discovered around 100 years ago, little is known about these events, which occur between 300 and 700.km depth and are intimately related to regions of the Earth where oceanic plates plunge deep into the Earth.
Using new techniques and an ever-expanding dataset, we aim to incorporate these earthquakes into our general physical understanding of earthquakes, and to use them to gain new insights on deep Earth processes.
This work is funded by the Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC).
Previous Work: Ophiolite Obduction
Collaborating with Tim Holland and Alan Smith (University of Cambridge) and Annie Rassios (IGME, Greece), my previous work has focused on the development of ophiolitic bodies, and creation of their underlying metamorphic soles and tectonic melanges, as a way to understand the onset of subduction and behaviour of the Earth's crust and upper mantle during convergence. Metamorphic soles are created during underthrusting of oceanic material underneath hot mantle, and therefore constrain the early obduction history of these dense oceanic bodies onto relatively buoyant continental crust.
Robert Myhill
Research Student 2008
+44 (0) 1223 337182
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Bullard
Research area(s):
Geophysics, Geodynamics and Tectonics
Last updated on 22-Jun-10 11:48