Learning objectives
Providing physical concepts that facilitate the study and understanding of Earth’s phenomena that are used in order to draw inferences in all branches of the Earth sciences, at various scales. The course provides specifical physics tools to critically evaluate geological phenomena of both scientific and applied interest.
Course unit content
Earth’s gravitational field; Earth’s magnetic field; thermal state of Earth’s crust and lithosphere; elasticity of Earth’s crust and lithosphere; seismology; plate tectonics.
Full programme
Universal gravitational law, corrections to Earth's gravitational field, Bouguer formula, isostasy from balance of acceleration contributions and forces, Pratt and Airy compensation mechanisms, free-air and Bouguer anomalies of Earth's gravitational field, elasticity of the Earth's crust, infinite elastic bar model, deflection response to static stresses in the wavelength domain, heat content, heat flow (Fourier's law), heat diffusion with/without sources, thermodynamic evolution of the oceanic lithosphere, temperature profile and heat flow of the oceanic lithosphere, thermodynamic subsidence of the oceanic lithosphere (half-space cooling model), temperature profile and heat flow of the continental crust, tectonic plate motions in 2D and 3D, Euler vectors, empirical laws for the kinematics of tectonic margins, law of magnetostatic interaction, Earth’s magnetic field, dipole component and residual component, magnetization of crustal rocks, reconstruction of crustal paleogeography from magnetic observations, radial structure of Earth, seismic waves and ray approximation, laws of reflection and refraction (Snell) of seismic rays, propagation of seismic rays inside Earth, P and S travel times, earthquake epicenter location, Gutenberg-Richter statistics for seismic events.
Bibliography
Course notes.
Scientific literature (articles) from international journals.
The Solid Earth
An Introduction to Global Geophysics by C. M. R. Fowler, Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Teaching methods
Lectures and team work. Lectures will cover both theory and discussion of examples. Laboratory work will be organized in groups of three-four students focusing on the solution of practical problems.
Assessment methods and criteria
Oral exam comprising questions that focus on the topics covered in class. Based on graphs/images selected from the course material, the candidate may be asked to elaborate and expand on the topic. It remains the possibility of asking the candidate, during the exam, to carry out an exercise on topics covered in class.
