Fabio Crameri

• Crameri, Fabio (2018). Geodynamic diagnostics, scientific visualisation and StagLab 3.0. Geoscientific Model Development.  ISSN 1991-959X.  11, s 2541- 2562 . doi: 10.5194/gmd-11-2541-2018 Show summary

  Today's geodynamic models can, often do and sometimes have to become very complex. Their underlying, increasingly elaborate numerical codes produce a growing amount of raw data. Post-processing such data is therefore becoming more and more important, but also more challenging and time-consuming. In addition, visualising processed data and results has, in times of coloured figures and a wealth of half-scientific software, become one of the weakest pillars of science, widely mistreated and ignored. Efficient and automated geodynamic diagnostics and sensible scientific visualisation preventing common pitfalls is thus more important than ever. Here, a collection of numerous diagnostics for plate tectonics and mantle dynamics is provided and a case for truly scientific visualisation is made. Amongst other diagnostics are a most accurate and robust plate-boundary identification, slab-polarity recognition, plate-bending derivation, surface-topography component splitting and mantle-plume detection. Thanks to powerful image processing tools and other elaborate algorithms, these and many other insightful diagnostics are conveniently derived from only a subset of the most basic parameter fields. A brand new set of scientific quality, perceptually uniform colour maps including devon, davos, oslo and broc is introduced and made freely available (http://www.fabiocrameri.ch/colourmaps, last access: 25 June 2018). These novel colour maps bring a significant advantage over misleading, non-scientific colour maps like rainbow, which is shown to introduce a visual error to the underlying data of up to 7.5%. Finally, StagLab (http://www.fabiocrameri.ch/StagLab, last access: 25 June 2018) is introduced, a software package that incorporates the whole suite of automated geodynamic diagnostics and, on top of that, applies state-of-the-art scientific visualisation to produce publication-ready figures and movies, all in the blink of an eye and all fully reproducible. StagLab, a simple, flexible, efficient and reliable tool made freely available to everyone, is written in MATLAB and adjustable for use with geodynamic mantle convection codes.

• Crameri, Fabio; Conrad, Clinton Phillips; Montési, Laurent & Lithgow-Bertelloni, Carolina (2018). The dynamic life of an oceanic plate. Tectonophysics.  ISSN 0040-1951. . doi: 10.1016/j.tecto.2018.03.016 Show summary

  As the Earth's primary mode of planetary cooling, the oceanic plate is created at mid-ocean ridges, transported across the planet's surface, and destroyed at subduction zones. The evolution of its buoyancy and rheology during its lifespan maintains the coherence of the plate as a distinct geological entity and controls the localised deformation and vertical material exchange at plate boundaries, which enables the horizontal ocean-plate movements. These motions intimately link the oceanic plate to the overarching overturn of Earth's mantle: The plate forms out of rising mantle material at spreading ridges; it cools the Earth's interior as the cold thermal boundary layer to mantle convection; and its sinking portions drive not only the plate itself but also dominate global flow in the mantle. We scrutinise here the entire life cycle of the oceanic plate, starting with its birth at the mid-ocean ridge, including the thermal, rheological, and chemical conditions of initiation, followed by plate maturation as it ages and cools while crossing the seafloor, and finishing with the dynamics of plate destruction as it retires at the subduction zone to become a deeper part of Earth's convective system. We find that the full range of dynamic behaviour of the oceanic plate, including its forcing and overall framework within Earth's convecting system, is not fully captured by the existing concept of Plate Tectonics, which describes solely the horizontal surface kinematics of all plates. Therefore, we introduce a more specific and at the same time more integral concept named “Ocean-Plate Tectonics” that more specifically describes the dynamic life of the oceanic plate and accounts for the knowledge gained during the past 50 years. This “Ocean-Plate Tectonics” must have emerged on Earth at least 1 Billion years ago, and dominates Earth's dynamics today.

• Crameri, Fabio & Lithgow-Bertelloni, Carolina (2018). Abrupt upper-plate tilting during slab-transition-zone collision. Tectonophysics.  ISSN 0040-1951. . doi: 10.1016/j.tecto.2017.09.013 Show summary

  The sinking remnant of a surface plate crosses and interacts with multiple boundaries in Earth's interior. Here, we specifically investigate the prominent dynamic interaction of the sinking plate portion with the upper-mantle transition zone and its corresponding surface elevation signal. We unravel, for the first time, that the collision of the sinking slab with the transition zone induces a sudden, dramatic downward tilt of the upper plate towards the subduction trench. Unraveling this crucial interaction was only possible thanks to state-of-the-art numerical modelling and post-processing. The new model that is introduced here to study the dynamically self-consistent temporal evolution of subduction features accurate subduction-zone topography, robust single-sided plate sinking, stronger plates close to laboratory values, an upper-mantle phase transition, and simple continents at a free surface. To distinguish the impact of the new physical model features, three different setups are used: the simplest model setup includes a basic high-viscosity lower mantle, the second adds a 660-km phase transition, and the third includes, additionally, a continental upper plate. Common to all models is the clear topographic signal upon slab-transition-zone interaction: the upper plate tilts abruptly towards the subduction trench by about 0.05° and over around 10 Ma. This dramatic increase in upper-plate tilt can be related to the slab-induced excitation of the high-viscosity lower mantle, which introduces a wider flow pattern. A large change in horizontal extent of inundation of up to 900 km is observed as a direct consequence of the upper-plate tilting. Such an abrupt variation in surface topography and inundation extent should be clearly visible in temporal records of large-scale surface elevation and might explain continental tilting as observed in Australia since the Eocene and North America during the Phanerozoic.

• Crameri, Fabio; Lithgow-Bertelloni, Carolina & Tackley, Paul J. (2017). The dynamical control of subduction parameters on surface topography. Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems.  ISSN 1525-2027.  18(4), s 1661- 1687 . doi: 10.1002/2017GC006821 Show summary

  The long-wavelength surface deflection of Earth's outermost rocky shell is mainly controlled by large-scale dynamic processes like isostasy or mantle flow. The largest topographic amplitudes are therefore observed at plate boundaries due to the presence of large thermal heterogeneities and strong tectonic forces. Distinct vertical surface deflections are particularly apparent at convergent plate boundaries mostly due to the convergence and asymmetric sinking of the plates. Having a mantle convection model with a free surface that is able to reproduce both realistic single-sided subduction and long-wavelength surface topography self-consistently, we are now able to better investigate this interaction. We separate the topographic signal into distinct features and quantify the individual topographic contribution of several controlling subduction parameters. Results are diagnosed by splitting the topographic signal into isostatic and residual components, and by considering various physical aspects like viscous dissipation during plate bending. Performing several systematic suites of experiments, we are then able to quantify the topographic impact of the buoyancy, rheology, and geometry of the subduction-zone system to each and every topographic feature at a subduction zone and to provide corresponding scaling laws. We identify slab dip and, slightly less importantly, slab buoyancy as the major agents controlling surface topography at subduction zones on Earth. Only the island-arc high and the back-arc depression extent are mainly controlled by plate strength. Overall, his modeling study sets the basis to better constrain deep-seated mantle structures and their physical properties via the observed surface topography on present-day Earth and back through time.

• Crameri, Fabio & Tackley, Paul J. (2016). Subduction initiation from a stagnant lid and global overturn: new insights from numerical models with a free surface. Progress in Earth and Planetary Science.  ISSN 2197-4284.  3 . doi: 10.1186/s40645-016-0103-8 Show summary

  Subduction initiation is a key in understanding the dynamic evolution of the Earth and its fundamental difference to all other rocky planetary bodies in our solar system. Despite recent progress, the question about how a stiff, mostly stagnant planetary lid can break and become part in the global overturn of the mantle is still unresolved. Many mechanisms, externally or internally driven, are proposed in previous studies. Here, we present the results on subduction initiation obtained by dynamically self-consistent, time-dependent numerical modelling of mantle convection. We show that the stress distribution and resulting deformation of the lithosphere are strongly controlled by the top boundary formulation: A free surface enables surface topography and plate bending, increases gravitational sliding of the plates and leads to more realistic, lithosphere-scale shear zones. As a consequence, subduction initiation induced by regional mantle flow is demonstrably favoured by a free surface compared to the commonly applied, vertically fixed (i.e. free-slip) surface. In addition, we present global, three-dimensional mantle convection experiments that employ basal heating that leads to narrow mantle plumes. Narrow mantle plumes impinging on the base of the plate cause locally weak plate segments and a large topography at the lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary. Both are shown to be key to induce subduction initiation. Finally, our model self-consistently reproduces an episodic lid with a fast global overturn due to the hotter mantle developed below a former stagnant lid. We conclude that once in a stagnant-lid mode, a planet (like Venus) might preferentially evolve by temporally discrete, global overturn events rather than by a continuous recycling of lid and that this is something worth testing more rigorously in future studies.

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• Crameri, Fabio (2017). Planetary Tectonics: Sinking plates on Venus. Nature Geoscience.  ISSN 1752-0894.  10, s 330- 331 . doi: 10.1038/ngeo2941

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