K.D. Nelson Lecture Series – Dr. Juliane Dannberg

The Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences presents the K.D. Nelson Lecture Series featuring speaker Juliane Dannberg. Her talk is titled: Subducted Slabs, Mantle Plumes and Material Recycling in the Earth’s Interior: Insights from Geodynamic Modeling. 

Earth’s surface shows many features we can only understand through their connection with processes in the Earth’s interior. Because Earth’s interior is largely inaccessible to direct observations, it remains a fundamental challenge to infer its complex dynamics and to explain how it shapes our planet. I will talk about how we can use computational models of the coupled system of plate motions at the Earth’s surface and convective flow in the Earth’s interior to better understand how material from the Earth’s surface is recycled through its interior, reaching the surface again as part of massive volcanic eruptions, and what processes control the formation of ocean islands.