Tectonic Processes Active
Geophysical research utilizes analytical and numerical tools to quantify tectonic processes. Basic geophysical research lays the ground for understanding of Earth processes, which affect natural hazards and resource estimation.
Mid-plate volcanoes load tectonic plates and cause the plates to flex. Plate flexure, in turn, can modify the volcanic eruptions. In transform plate boundaries, the majority of relative plate motion takes place by lateral displacement between two tectonic plates. Read ten Brink and others research papers.
- Queen Charlotte Fault (SE Alaska-Canada)
- The Dead Sea Transform
- California
At rift zones the continental crust and lithosphere are subjected to extensional stresses, which result in the formation of sedimentary basins. These basins sometime accumulate natural resources of oil, gas and water. Read ten Brink and others research papers.
- Basins along the Dead Sea Transform
- Baikal rift and Cayman Trough
- Rift-margin uplift: The Transantarctic Mountains
In subduction plate boundaries, one tectonic plate sinks under another tectonic plate. The process of sinking is often accompanied by large earthquakes, volcanism, and the building of mountains. Read ten Brink and others research papers.
- Northern Caribbean subduction zone around U.S. territories
- Cascadia subduction zone in the northwestern U.S.
Electronic Media
Podcast Title: Science in the Middle East New York Academy of Sciences - Science and the City. June 20, 2008 Format: MP3, 11.8 MByte Running Time: 00:25:08
Webinar Lecture Title: Size Distribution of Submarine Landslides and Its Implication to Tsunami Hazards Offshore Geohazard University Running Time: 00:12:00 http://www.offshoregeohazards.org/ogu/webinars/Size_Distribution_Submar…
Lecture Title: Assessing Tsunami Hazards to U.S. East Coast Using Relationships Between Submarine Landslides and Earthquakes Offshore Geohazard University Running Time: 00:21:30 http://www.offshoregeohazards.org/ogu/webinars/Assessing_Tsunami_Hazard…
Lecture Title: Deformation of the Pacific-North-American plate boundary at queen Charlotte Fault: The possible role of rheology USGS Earthquake Hazards Program Seminars, October 2017.Running Time:00:45:00 https://earthquake.usgs.gov/contactus/menlo/seminars/1100
Educational Film Title: The Puerto Rico Trench: Exploring the deepest place in the Atlantic Ocean 14-minute educational film about sea floor mapping and tsunami and earthquake hazards, 2004, by Joram ten Brink For a DVD copy of the movie, please contact: Dr. Uri ten Brink, U.S. Geological Survey, Woods Hole Science Center 384 Woods Hole Road, Woods Hole, MA 02543 1-508-457-2396; utenbrink@usgs.gov
Publications associated with Uri ten Brink's tectonic processes research.
Plate deformation at depth under northern California: Slab gap or stretched slab?
Synthesis of crustal seismic structure and implications for the concept of a slab gap beneath Coastal California
Anatomy of the Dead Sea transform: Does it reflect continuous changes in plate motion?
Comment on "New evidence of magmatic diapirs in the intermediate crust under the Dead Sea, Israel" by Nitzan Rabinowitz, Jean Steinberg, and Yossi Mart
New seismic images of the cascadia subduction zone from cruise SO 108-ORWELL
A new view into the Cascadia subduction zone and volcanic arc: Implications for earthquake hazards along the Washington margin
Uplift of the Transantarctic Mountains and the bedrock beneath the East Antarctic ice sheet
Three-dimensional models of deformation near strike-slip faults
Crustal structure of a transform plate boundary: San Francisco Bay and the central California continental margin
Gravity field over the Sea of Galilee: Evidence for a composite basin along a transform fault
EAST93: Geophysical traverse from the Transantarctic Mountains to the Wilkes Basin, East Antarctica
Three-dimensional modeling of pull-apart basins: implications for the tectonics of the Dead Sea Basin
- Overview
Geophysical research utilizes analytical and numerical tools to quantify tectonic processes. Basic geophysical research lays the ground for understanding of Earth processes, which affect natural hazards and resource estimation.
Mid-plate volcanoes load tectonic plates and cause the plates to flex. Plate flexure, in turn, can modify the volcanic eruptions. In transform plate boundaries, the majority of relative plate motion takes place by lateral displacement between two tectonic plates. Read ten Brink and others research papers.
- Queen Charlotte Fault (SE Alaska-Canada)
- The Dead Sea Transform
- California
At rift zones the continental crust and lithosphere are subjected to extensional stresses, which result in the formation of sedimentary basins. These basins sometime accumulate natural resources of oil, gas and water. Read ten Brink and others research papers.
- Basins along the Dead Sea Transform
- Baikal rift and Cayman Trough
- Rift-margin uplift: The Transantarctic Mountains
In subduction plate boundaries, one tectonic plate sinks under another tectonic plate. The process of sinking is often accompanied by large earthquakes, volcanism, and the building of mountains. Read ten Brink and others research papers.
- Northern Caribbean subduction zone around U.S. territories
- Cascadia subduction zone in the northwestern U.S.
Electronic Media
Podcast Title: Science in the Middle East New York Academy of Sciences - Science and the City. June 20, 2008 Format: MP3, 11.8 MByte Running Time: 00:25:08
Webinar Lecture Title: Size Distribution of Submarine Landslides and Its Implication to Tsunami Hazards Offshore Geohazard University Running Time: 00:12:00 http://www.offshoregeohazards.org/ogu/webinars/Size_Distribution_Submar…
Lecture Title: Assessing Tsunami Hazards to U.S. East Coast Using Relationships Between Submarine Landslides and Earthquakes Offshore Geohazard University Running Time: 00:21:30 http://www.offshoregeohazards.org/ogu/webinars/Assessing_Tsunami_Hazard…
Lecture Title: Deformation of the Pacific-North-American plate boundary at queen Charlotte Fault: The possible role of rheology USGS Earthquake Hazards Program Seminars, October 2017.Running Time:00:45:00 https://earthquake.usgs.gov/contactus/menlo/seminars/1100
Educational Film Title: The Puerto Rico Trench: Exploring the deepest place in the Atlantic Ocean 14-minute educational film about sea floor mapping and tsunami and earthquake hazards, 2004, by Joram ten Brink For a DVD copy of the movie, please contact: Dr. Uri ten Brink, U.S. Geological Survey, Woods Hole Science Center 384 Woods Hole Road, Woods Hole, MA 02543 1-508-457-2396; utenbrink@usgs.gov
- Publications
Publications associated with Uri ten Brink's tectonic processes research.
Filter Total Items: 40Plate deformation at depth under northern California: Slab gap or stretched slab?
Plate kinematic interpretations for northern California predict a gap in the underlying subducted slab caused by the northward migration of the Pacific-North America-Juan de Fuca triple junction. However, large-scale decompression melting and asthenospheric upwelling to the base of the overlying plate within the postulated gap are not supported by geophysical and geochemical observations. We suggeAuthorsUri S. ten Brink, N. Shimizu, P.C. MolzerSynthesis of crustal seismic structure and implications for the concept of a slab gap beneath Coastal California
Compilation of seismic transects across the central and northern California Coast Ranges provides evidence for the widespread tectonic emplacement beneath the margin of a slab of partially subducted oceanic lithosphere. The oceanic crust of this lithosphere can be traced landward from the former convergent margin (fossil trench), beneath the Coast Ranges, to at least as far east as the Coast RangeAuthorsT. M. Brocher, Uri S. ten Brink, T. AbramovitzAnatomy of the Dead Sea transform: Does it reflect continuous changes in plate motion?
A new gravity map of the southern half of the Dead Sea transform offers the first regional view of the anatomy of this plate boundary. Interpreted together with auxiliary seismic and well data, the map reveals a string of subsurface basins of widely varying size, shape, and depth along the plate boundary and relatively short (25–55 km) and discontinuous fault segments. We argue that this structureAuthorsUri S. ten Brink, M. Rybakov, A. S. Al-Zoubi, M. Hassouneh, U. Frieslander, A.T. Batayneh, V. Goldschmidt, M.N. Daoud, Y. Rotstein, J.K. HallComment on "New evidence of magmatic diapirs in the intermediate crust under the Dead Sea, Israel" by Nitzan Rabinowitz, Jean Steinberg, and Yossi Mart
No abstract available.AuthorsA. Hofstetter, M. Rybakov, Uri S. ten BrinkNew seismic images of the cascadia subduction zone from cruise SO 108-ORWELL
In April and May 1996, a geophysical study of the Cascadia continental margin off Oregon and Washington was conducted aboard the German R/V Sonne. This cooperative experiment by GEOMAR and the USGS acquired wide-angle reflection and refraction seismic data, using ocean-bottom seismometers (OBS) and hydrophones (OBH), and multichannel seismic reflection (MCS) data. The main goal of this experimentAuthorsE.R. Flueh, M. A. Fisher, J. Bialas, J.R. Childs, D. Klaeschen, Nina Kukowski, T. Parsons, D.W. Scholl, Uri S. ten Brink, A.M. Trehu, N. VidalA new view into the Cascadia subduction zone and volcanic arc: Implications for earthquake hazards along the Washington margin
In light of suggestions that the Cascadia subduction margin may pose a significant seismic hazard for the highly populated Pacific Northwest region of the United States, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the Research Center for Marine Geosciences (GEOMAR), and university collaborators collected and interpreted a 530-km-long wide-angle onshore-offshore seismic transect across the subduction zone aAuthorsT. Parsons, A.M. Trehu, J. H. Luetgert, K. Miller, F. Kilbride, R. E. Wells, M. A. Fisher, E. Flueh, Uri S. ten Brink, N.I. ChristensenUplift of the Transantarctic Mountains and the bedrock beneath the East Antarctic ice sheet
In recent years the Transantarctic Mountains (TAM), the largest noncontractional mountain belt in the world, have become the focus of modelers who explained their uplift by a variety of isostatic and thermal mechanisms. A problem with these models is a lack of available data to compare with model predictions. We report here the results of a 312-km-long geophysical traverse conducted in 1993/1994 iAuthorsUri S. ten Brink, R.I. Hackney, S. Bannister, T.A. Stern, Y. MakovskyThree-dimensional models of deformation near strike-slip faults
We use three-dimensional elastic models to help guide the kinematic interpretation of crustal deformation associated with strike-slip faults. Deformation of the brittle upper crust in the vicinity of strike-slip fault systems is modeled with the assumption that upper crustal deformation is driven by the relative plate motion in the upper mantle. The driving motion is represented by displacement thAuthorsUri S. ten Brink, Rafael Katzman, Jian LinCrustal structure of a transform plate boundary: San Francisco Bay and the central California continental margin
Wide-angle seismic data collected during the Bay Area Seismic Imaging Experiment provide new glimpses of the deep structure of the San Francisco Bay Area Block and across the offshore continental margin. San Francisco Bay is underlain by a veneer (AuthorsW.S. Holbrook, T. M. Brocher, Uri S. ten Brink, J.A. HoleGravity field over the Sea of Galilee: Evidence for a composite basin along a transform fault
The Sea of Galilee (Lake Kinneret) is located at the northern portion of the Kinneret-Bet Shean basin, in the northern Dead Sea transform. Three hundred kilometers of continuous marine gravity data were collected in the lake and integrated with land gravity data to a distance of more than 20 km around the lake. Analyses of the gravity data resulted in a free-air anomaly map, a variable density BouAuthorsZ. Ben-Avraham, Uri S. ten Brink, R. Bell, M. ReznikovEAST93: Geophysical traverse from the Transantarctic Mountains to the Wilkes Basin, East Antarctica
The East Antarctic Seismic Traverse (EAST93) was a geophysical traverse designed to image the bedrock under the East Antarctic ice cap. The traverse started 10 km west of the Taylor Dome drill site and 25 km west of the exposed bedrock of the Transantarctic Mountains at Lashly Mt. and ended 323 km west of the drill site over the Wilkes subglacial basin (Fig. 1). The traverse was located subparalleAuthorsUri S. ten Brink, Stephen BannisterThree-dimensional modeling of pull-apart basins: implications for the tectonics of the Dead Sea Basin
We model the three-dimensional (3-D) crustal deformation in a deep pull-apart basin as a result of relative plate motion along a transform system and compare the results to the tectonics of the Dead Sea Basin. The brittle upper crust is modeled by a boundary element technique as an elastic block, broken by two en echelon semi-infinite vertical faults. The deformation is caused by a horizontal dispAuthorsRafael Katzman, Uri S. ten Brink, Jian Lin