The last decade has seen an impressive growth in geophysical and geological developments that are particularly relevant to geodynamics, such as high resolution seismic tomographic images of Earth's mantle, improved knowledge of elastic and viscous properties of mantle minerals, new constraints on dynamically induced vertical motions of Earth's surface and detailed inferences of past plate-motion changes. These geodynamically important developments stem from interpretations of forward or inverse modelling of primary observations, such as seismograms, magnetic anomalies, fission track picks and so on. Proper cross-disciplinary use of these results therefore requires a clear understanding of the assumptions and limitations that underlie these raw observations, as well as the resulting modelling and interpretation.

Geodynamic modelling has likewise seen significant progress as manifested in the improved ability to predict synthetic seismic waveforms for mantle structures derived from forward modelling and to retrodict past mantle flow using inverse methods. Thus the potential exists to evaluate various geophysical observations within the context of the known physics of mantle convection. Our goal is to significantly improve the understanding of the deep Earth and its interaction with shallow processes, making the most of this serendipitous confluence of theoretical advances and the wide range of often complementary observations. This session aims at gathering scientists working across disciplines to link geodynamic observations and predictions from seismology, mineral physics, basin analysis, seismic stratigraphy, fission track analysis, geomorphology, geochemistry, and plate motion modelling.

Invited speakers:
Juan Carlos Afonso (Macquarie University)
David Rowley (University of Chicago)