Classic rheological models predicting a depth that separates brittle deformation in the upper crust from a region below in which deformation is dominated by ductile processes have long been outdated. In fact, the deformation behaviour of Earth’s lithosphere is more complex and brittle and ductile processes may interact throughout the lithosphere. In the rock record, brittle deformation may be expressed as features ranging from micro-fracturing of mineral grains up to large-scale faults with or without evidence of seismic ruptures (e.g. pseudotachylytes). On the other hand, ductile deformation is typically expressed as shear zones ranging from millimeter to kilometer scales. Factors known to determine whether strain is accommodated by brittle and/or ductile processes include, but are not limited to: material properties (e.g., grain size, composition), strain rate, strain incompatibilities, pressure-temperature conditions, the availability of fluids, and rock modification by metamorphic reactions.
The multitude of possible factors determining the deformation style in the lithosphere make a comprehensive understanding of the deformation behavior of Earth’s lithosphere challenging. In this session we aim to tackle the complex topic of lithospheric deformation by combining observations from natural rocks with those from experimental and numerical studies.

Understanding rock deformation requires zooming into the finest details of mineral fabrics down to the nanoscale. Electron and X-ray microscopy performed with laboratory instruments or synchrotrons provides a wide range of imaging techniques in real space (e.g., micro-tomography, X-ray fluorescence microscopy, backscattered- and secondary-electron microscopy, ptychography) and reciprocal space (electron-backscatter diffraction, transmission micro-XRD, small-angle X-ray scattering). This session welcomes studies that use these cutting-edge analytical techniques to investigate strain localization, fluid–rock/mineral interactions, and the links between nano(geo)sciences- to regional-scale deformation across the Earth’s crust. We particularly encourage contributions that integrate such high-resolution datasets with natural observations, experimental techniques and numerical modelling.

The lithosphere is mechanically and compositionally heterogeneous across virtually all spatial scales. Competence contrasts between minerals and lithologies, inherited shear zones and sutures, reaction fronts, fractures, and variations in hydraulic properties can redistribute stress, strain and mass, exerting a complex control on the effective rheology of deforming rocks. At subduction interfaces, heterogeneous assemblages of blocks, slivers and weak or strong metamorphic rocks may govern mechanical coupling; in the lower crust, deformation is commonly partitioned into weak shear zones surrounding stronger domains; and at the lithospheric scale, inherited sutures and weak orogenic belts can guide deformation around mechanically stronger cratonic terranes. Thus, such anisotropy influences deformation across the entire temporal spectrum, from long-term ductile flow and strain localization to short-term mechanical instabilities with direct implications for earthquake rupture and natural hazards.

This session aims to determine how mechanical, compositional and hydraulic heterogeneities arise, evolve and govern deformation and fluid–rock interaction across the lithosphere, from microstructures to plate scales and across tectonic environments. We encourage contributions combining field and microstructural observations, petrological and geochemical constraints, rock mechanics, geodesy and geophysical imaging, and numerical modelling. By integrating these perspectives, we aim to uncover how contrasts in composition, strength and hydraulic properties give rise to emergent patterns of strain localization, fluid and mass transfer, and bulk rheological behaviour, linking long-term tectonic evolution with transient mechanical processes.

Fluid-rock interactions play a pivotal role in shaping crustal dynamics and influencing subsurface engineering processes. From the shallow sedimentary rocks down to the deep magmatic and metamorphic rocks, fluids govern aspects such as deformation localization, earthquake genesis, and the emergence of metamorphic reactions and rheological weakening. In most cases, there is a dynamic feedback between fluids, deformation and metamorphism at all scales. Fluids are critical not only for creating robust models of the solid Earth but also for advancing subsurface engineering endeavors like geothermal energy recovery, hydrogen storage and extraction as well as permanent carbon storage.
As we navigate through the ongoing energy transition, enhancing these interactions for maximum geo-resource efficacy is a vital priority. The legacy inscribed within rock records paints a vivid picture of intricate interplay between mineral reactions, fluid flow and deformation—testaments to the often-intense nature of fluid-rock interactions.
This session aims to draw the current picture of the advances and challenges, whether conceptual, methodological, or experimental when considering the role of fluid-rock interactions. We invite contributions that utilize an array of methodologies, ranging from natural observations, microstructural assessments, and geochemical analyses to rock mechanics, all intertwined with modelling techniques. This modelling can span from ab initio simulations to continuum scale simulations, ensuring a comprehensive exploration of fluid-rock/mineral interactions. Contributions that harness the power of artificial intelligence and its subsets are particularly encouraged.

Fracture systems are fundamental structural features controlling the mechanical, hydraulic, and geochemical behaviour of rock masses. Their influence ranges from the stability of natural and engineered slopes to fluid migration processes.
This session aims to bring together researchers from different fields to explore and compare methodologies for investigating fractured rock masses, emphasising the value of integrated multi-scale (from grain-scale microcracks to meso-scale fracture networks, up to tectonic-scale systems) and multidisciplinary approaches.
We welcome contributions across a broad geological and process-based context, linking observations and methods from field-based surveys, outcrop characterisation, laboratory testing, microstructural analysis, numerical and analogue modelling, remote sensing, and geophysical imaging. Applications to natural hazards (e.g., rockfalls, landslides), energy and resource exploration, fluid transport and storage, structural geology and tectonics are particularly encouraged. By bringing together structural geology, rock mechanics, and engineering geology, the session aims to foster a constructive and stimulating discussion on fractures across scales and disciplines, addressing both scientific and practical challenges.

For decades, experimental work has contributed significantly to how we understand deformation in the Earth’s lithosphere. While the geological record preserved in natural samples often resembles a snapshot frozen in time, experiments allow us to follow their journey. Experiments provide a unique means of linking processes to products, testing hypotheses, and developing better-informed numerical models, by controlling boundary conditions, isolating key parameters, manipulating materials or observing deformation in real time.
This session’s aim is to bring together experimentalists from across disciplines to explore what experiments can reveal about lithospheric deformation, and foster discussions on identifying and expanding their limitations. We welcome contributions addressing deformation across a broad range of scales (micro- to crustal scale), conditions (brittle to ductile) and strain rates (seismic to aseismic). We particularly encourage the submission of studies that introduce new experimental techniques, bridge scales or disciplines, challenge existing paradigms, combine experiments with observations on natural samples or numerical models, or examine unexpected outcomes.

Not every experiment goes as planned. Yet, failure can be the starting point of some of the most interesting discussions and discoveries. Which processes are impossible or simply too difficult to reproduce? What limitations are imposed by apparatus, materials, or boundary conditions? Where do scaling laws break down? And what can we learn from failed experiments?
Negative results may provide the foundation for important advances. We therefore also invite contributions that look beyond experimental success and share challenges, failures and the insights they reveal.

Our goal is to connect diverse experimental communities, facilitate the exchange of methods and ideas, and create a supportive space for discussing both achievements and setbacks. By fostering dialogue among experimentalists, this session seeks to identify common challenges, open new opportunities for collaboration, and ultimately strengthen the role of experiments in deciphering Earth’s deformation processes.

Rocks deform, fracture, dissolve and melt over time, yet most of what we know about these processes comes from before-and-after snapshots. Three-dimensional and time-resolved (4D) X-ray imaging changes this by letting us follow the same sample as it evolves under stress, fluid flow, and changing temperature, at scales from pores to the whole specimen. This session brings together researchers who use laboratory microCT, synchrotron imaging and neutron tomography to observe these processes directly, and those who turn the resulting images into quantitative models.
We welcome contributions that use 3D and 4D imaging to study fracture and faulting, compaction and creep, multiphase and reactive flow, melt and bubble migration, and volcanic and magmatic processes. We equally encourage methodological advances: new experimental rigs, digital volume correlation, machine-learning segmentation, and workflows linking images to numerical simulations (FEM, DEM, lattice-Boltzmann) and theory.
By connecting rock physics, volcanology and materials science, the session aims to build a shared community around a common question: what do we learn when we can watch the process, not just its result?

The interplay between tectonic deformation, fluid circulation, and rock rheology is fundamental to understanding lithospheric evolution, seismic cycles, and resource formation. While traditional structural geology has established robust kinematic frameworks, quantifying the dynamic feedbacks among stress, fluid pressure, and rheological weakening remains a frontier challenge. Fortunately, rapid advances in Earth observation, geophysics, and geochronology have generated unprecedented multi-source data. Concurrently, high-resolution numerical modelling and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are revolutionizing our ability to decode these complex, non-linear processes across scales from grain to orogen.

This session convenes researchers bridging field-based structural analysis, experimental petrology, and computational geoscience. We emphasize big-data-driven and AI-assisted approaches to integrate multi-source observations into physically consistent interpretations of tectonic-fluid and rheological systems. We welcome contributions on topics including, but not limited to: 1) Deformation and rheology: brittle-ductile transitions, strain localization, flow laws, and lithospheric weakening mechanisms. 2) Fluid-rock interaction: metamorphic and/or magmatic fluid flow, mineral reactions, permeability evolution, and dynamic feedbacks on deformation. 3) Numerical and analogue modelling: multi-physics or multi-scale simulations of deformation-fluid interactions and parameter benchmarking. 4) AI and machine learning: automated recognition of microstructures, fault architectures, and fluid inclusions from remote sensing, geophysical, or imagery data; AI-assisted data mining and uncertainty quantification. 5) Big-data integration: geospatial, geophysical, and experimental database construction; data-driven discovery and hypothesis generation. 6) Applications: orogens, rifts, shear zones, and cratons; implications for seismic hazard, mineral resources, and energy exploration.

Deformation and chemical transformation in metamorphic rocks are often strongly coupled. Microstructural evidence from natural and experimentally deformed rocks, together with numerical models, demonstrates that mechanical stresses can influence diffusion pathways, reaction kinetics, strain energy, and phase stability at the grain scale, while chemical processes can in turn generate or redistribute stresses. This feedback between mechanics and chemistry operates across scales, from intracrystalline deformation to stress gradients across rock volumes, to the rheological evolution of the lithosphere as a whole. This session aims to bring together researchers from different backgrounds in order to fill the gap from nanoscale observations to large-scale geodynamic processes.
We welcome multidisciplinary contributions that address open questions on how chemical and mechanical processes interact at the nano- and microscale, how these interactions are best captured in numerical models, and how they influence the interpretation of the rock record and larger-scale geodynamic processes. These comprise contributions focusing on the coupling of mechanical and chemical processes in Earth materials, spanning from microstructural and analytical studies (e.g., EBSD, EPMA, Raman spectroscopy, TEM), to experimental studies (e.g., deformation experiments across scales), to numerical and thermodynamic modelling. We particularly encourage studies that seek to bridge processes at multiple scales, including the development and evolution of shear zones, the mechanisms governing seismicity, and the rheological behavior of the lithosphere.

This special session pays tribute to the scientific legacy of our colleague César R. Ranero, whose vision and leadership fundamentally transformed our understanding of plate boundary dynamics through state-of-the-art seismic imaging and integrated geodynamic modeling.
A central theme of César’s career was obtaining the highest quality observations from unique seismic datasets to conceptually advance tectonic models. In particular, his contributions help understanding the intricate linkages between long-term tectonic deformation, earthquake generation, and fluid flow dynamics through complex multidisciplinary experiments, and the development of bleeding-edge geophysical processing and inversion methods.
Although we encouraged studies based on seismic data, this session is open to all researchers working on the characterization of active and passive margins through observational, numerical, or experimental approaches. We particularly welcome contributions covering:
- Rifted margins and continental breakup: Crustal thinning, mantle exhumation, magmatic vs. magma-poor margin architecture, and the transition to seafloor spreading.
- Subduction zone processes: Megathrust structure, faulting and hydration of the bending incoming plate, forearc architecture, fluid flow, and controls on seismogenesis.
- Methodological advances in seismic imaging: Innovative acquisition strategies, processing workflows (e.g., FWI, advanced migration), and joint inversion techniques applied to deep crustal and lithospheric studies.
By integrating seismic data with seismology, drilling data, and geodynamic modeling, this session aims to foster discussions at the frontiers of subsurface imaging and global tectonics, honoring César’s passion for data-driven, breakthrough geosciences.

Rifting is a complex process that spans from the inception of lithospheric extension through continental rupture and the onset of oceanic spreading, or alternatively to the formation of a failed rift. This session aims to combine new data, concepts and techniques elucidating the structure and dynamics of rifts and rifted margins, and to investigate how continental extension evolves into, or fails to evolve into, a new plate boundary and oceanic spreading system.

We invite submissions addressing the time-dependent evolution and interactions of processes including faults and ductile shear zones development, tectonic and sedimentary history, magma migration, storage and volcanism, lithospheric necking and rift strength loss, influence of lithospheric inheritance, rift kinematics and plate motion, mantle flow and dynamic topography, as well as continental break-up and the transition to oceanic seafloor spreading.

We welcome multidisciplinary and innovative approaches using field geology, geochronology, geochemistry, petrology, seismology, geodesy, marine geophysics, plate reconstruction, or numerical or analogue modelling.

Emphasis will be given to presentations that bridge spatial and temporal scales and integrate insights from active rifts, passive margins, nascent oceanic domains, and failed rift arms.

Accretionary wedges and fold-and-thrust belts provide outstanding natural laboratories for investigating the dynamics of orogens and their adjacent foreland basins, as well as the interactions between deformation and surface or mantle processes. They are also prime targets for geothermal energy exploration, subsurface energy and gas storage, and the exploitation of critical raw materials, playing a strategic role in the transition toward low-carbon, sustainable, and renewable energy systems.
On short timescales, the pattern of deformation and erosion sheds light on crustal mechanics and its relation to earthquakes, the potential influence of climatically or tectonically driven erosion, as well as the importance of fluid flow. Over long time scales, the structure and dynamics of fold-and-thrust belts and accretionary prisms offer unique insights into the influence of structural and rheological inheritance and the interaction with foreland basin evolution, including, where present, the impact of salt tectonics on deformation styles.
This session aims to bridge the gap between spatial and temporal scales, from shallow depths to the full lithospheric scale, and from short-term to long-term- processes, to improve our understanding of the evolution of orogenic wedges. It will bring together researchers from all disciplines concerned with compressive wedges and associated sedimentary basins to meet, exchange ideas and discuss their perspectives.
We warmly welcome contributions focusing on topical works on these fascinating geological systems, including but not limited to seismology, mechanics, structural geology, dating of deformation, geomorphology, hydrogeology, and analogue or numerical modeling. We also encourage regional case studies of fold-and-thrust belts and accretionary wedges and their links to hinterland and foreland portions of mountain belts. In addition, we welcome applied studies focusing on subsurface low-carbon solutions such as geothermal energy, critical raw material exploration, subsurface gas storage systems, and challenges associated with exploration or geohazards.

The Alpine-Mediterranean region is one of the world's most complex plate boundary systems where subduction, slab rollback, continental collision, back-arc extension, and lithospheric deformation coexist over relatively short spatial scales. Understanding the structure and dynamics of its lithosphere and upper mantle requires increasingly integrated geophysical observations and multidisciplinary interpretation.

Over the last decade, major observational initiatives such as AlpArray and AdriaArray, together with permanent seismic networks and complementary geophysical experiments, have substantially improved our ability to image the Mediterranean lithosphere and upper mantle at unprecedented resolution. At the same time, advances in seismic imaging, detection and location of seismic events, geodesy, gravity, magnetotellurics, field studies, tectonic reconstructions, petrology, mineral physics, and geodynamic modelling are providing new insights into the evolution and dynamics of this complex plate boundary system.

This session welcomes contributions that use integrated geophysical and geological observations and multidisciplinary approaches to investigate the structure, composition, evolution, and dynamics of the Alpine-Mediterranean lithosphere and mantle. Contributions addressing crustal architecture, lithosphere-asthenosphere interactions, slab geometry and evolution, mantle discontinuities, mantle flow, deformation processes, and links between deep Earth structure and surface tectonics are particularly welcome.

Recent findings from the Paleozoic Caledonian (North European), Appalachian (North American), and Variscan (European–North African) belts highlight overlapping timelines for major magmatic and tectono-metamorphic events. This synchronization suggests these orogenies were interconnected, driven by the simultaneous subduction of the Iapetus and Rheic oceans during much of their evolution. However, reconstructing this complex orogenic collage remains difficult because subsequent tectonic and thermal events have overprinted primary structures, obscuring vital geochronological, structural, and geochemical data. Consequently, understanding the continuity between distinct terranes and oceanic sutures remains a major challenge. To address these questions, we invite contributions that advance our understanding of these large-scale geodynamic processes. We highly encourage multidisciplinary regional studies, detailed petrological and geochronological research, and integrative lithospheric- to mantle-scale models.

How does continental crust deform, evolve, and reorganise during orogenesis? The Variscan Mountain Belt provides an exceptional natural laboratory to address this question across space and time scales. This session brings together field-based, analytical, experimental, and modelling approaches—from microstructures to crustal and orogen-scale processes— to build an integrated view of crustal dynamics during orogen formation. Contributions exploring the Variscan Belt and its analogues that bring together a multidisciplinary approach are particularly welcome.
We welcome contributions addressing structural and kinematic processes, from grain-scale microstructures to orogen-scale shear zones; petrological and geochemical characterisation; geochronology, thermochronology, and petrochronology; integrated P–T–t–D reconstructions; and analogue and numerical modelling. Particular emphasis is placed on studies that connect observations across scales and demonstrate how processes operating at the mineral and rock scale can be linked to crustal- and orogen-scale dynamics. This includes differentiation processes during melting, and preservation of structures across successive orogenic events. Comparative studies of other Variscan-age and peri-Gondwanan orogens are also encouraged, as well as contributions that explore how insights from the Variscan record can inform our understanding of more recent orogenic systems.
By bringing together complementary approaches, this session aims to promote discussion on how we can bridge scales and integrate geological observations with modelling to better understand the dynamics and evolution of continental crust through space and time.
The session will feature a keynote presentation by Dr Petra Maierová, specialist in numerical modelling of tectonic processes, from the Centre for Lithospheric Research, Czech Geological Survey.

The Tethyan realm records one of Earth's most protracted and instructive examples of ocean-basin evolution, spanning nearly 600 million years from Neoproterozoic continental rifting to Mesozoic collision and final ocean closure in Cenozoic. This session examines the recurrent, long-lived geodynamic processes that governed the birth, growth, consumption, and demise of successive Tethyan oceanic domains, from the breakup of Rodinia and the opening of the Proto-, Paleo-, and Neo-Tethys oceans, to the assembly of Pangea and the Alpine–Himalayan orogenic collage. A central objective is to identify which mechanisms persisted across multiple Wilson cycles, and how they operated within evolving plate-margin configurations.

We invite contributions addressing, but not limited to: the rifting and initial spreading dynamics of Tethyan basins; the role of subduction initiation, slab retreat, and ridge–trench interaction in oceanic accretion; the accretion of oceanic plateaus, seamounts, and arc complexes; the timing and mechanisms of ocean closure and terminal collision; and the transfer of deformation from oceanic to continental lithosphere. We particularly welcome interdisciplinary studies integrating structural geology, petrology, geochronology, paleomagnetism, and geodynamic modeling to trace continuity and change in these long-lived processes. By comparing Tethyan segments across space and time, this session aims to refine general models of ocean evolution and to illuminate the deeper, persistent drivers that link deep-Earth dynamics to surface orogenesis.

Continental crust preserves complex and often overprinted histories of deformation, magmatism, metamorphism, burial and exhumation. These histories are encoded in rock fabrics at scales ranging from mineral lattices to orogenic belts, yet the ways in which rock fabrics record different deformation processes or stages is rarely straightforward.
This session explores how structural, mineral, and magnetic fabrics can be integrated to reconstruct deformation kinematics and tectonic histories. We invite studies of igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks from active and ancient orogens, using approaches including field-based structural analysis, crystallographic and microstructural fabric characterization, anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility and remanence, paleomagnetism, petrology, geochronology, seismic anisotropy, and analogue or numerical modelling. We particularly welcome contributions that combine or integrate independent proxies and methods; connecting mineral-scale and outcrop-scale observations to crustal-scale processes; or confront ambiguities caused by strain partitioning, magmatic versus tectonic fabrics, metamorphic overprinting and structural reactivation.

Extensional detachments and low-angle normal faults (LANFs) are dynamic structures, shaping the Earth crust over geological time intervals and cumulating tens of km of vertical and horizontal displacement. In the oceanic realm, they are also major players accommodating (hyper-)extension, mantle exhumation and the development of oceanic core complexes at slow and ultra-slow spreading ridges and magma-poor passive margins, commonly associated with serpentinization, hydrothermal circulation and fluid-rock interactions. Detachments thus testify to past or ongoing crustal/lithospheric extension, where the localisation of ductile and brittle deformation is characterised by (i) a progressive ductile-to-brittle transition during shear zone evolution en route towards shallow crustal levels or (ii) can coexist at different structural levels, making the reconstruction of detachment evolution even more complex.
For this reason, constraints on brittle and ductile strain localisation and on their precise age of activation are increasingly relevant. This acquires even greater importance when investigating the architecture and mechanics of extensional detachments, where through-time superposed domains with different mineralogy and petrophysical properties change the mechanical response of shear- and fault zones. Coexisting or partitioned seismic vs. aseismic deformation, repeated cycles of shear zone weakening/hardening, and syn-tectonic fluid flow and fluid-rock interactions may all be governed by these (still partially underinvestigated) structural complexities in both continental and oceanic settings.
- What allows the initiation and evolution of detachments, whether continental or oceanic, and which processes act coevally or diachronously?
- What is the link between detachment formation, mantle exhumation and hydrothermal activity?
- What is the role of tectonic or thermal inheritance in the formation of LANFs and continental/oceanic detachments?
All contributions fostering discussions on these points are welcome in this session, including comparisons between continental and oceanic systems. We encourage the submission of research based on multidisciplinary and multiscale approaches, encompassing, among others, field analysis, seismic and other geophysical investigations, numerical and laboratory modelling, ocean drilling, and absolute dating and petrological constraints on syn-kinematic fabrics and mineralisation.

Forearc regions along convergent margins are the most highly active tectonic environments worldwide. Despite that these areas are predominantly shaped by convergence, they are subjected to particular tectonic processes like tectonic erosion, basal underplating, frontal accretion, upper-crust faulting, trench migration, the subduction seismic cycle, etc. Particularly, these drivers operate at different timescales and contribute unevenly to the final measured signature. As such, since differentiating between them is challenging, characterizing deformation remains elusive. This is key for understanding how the forearc deforms across geological (million years) to seismic cycle (tens to hundreds of years) timescales.

Typically, tectonic drivers are studied from a singular discipline. As a result, the role of processes that operate across timescales is masked out. To expand our perspective, this session will bring together multidisciplinary approaches that integrate different datasets spanning from regional to outcrop scales, and from tens to million years. We welcome novel contributions that quantify one (or several) tectonic driver(s) in the context of complex forearc geodynamics. We expect studies that integrate the following approaches: geochronology, tectonic geomorphology, structural geology, laboratory experiments, instrumental seismicity, analog models, numerical modeling. Our aim is to unify our understanding about forearc deformation into a comprehensive tectonic process.

Partial melting of Earth’s crust and mantle occurs in a wide range of settings, e.g., within plate, and at divergent, convergent, and transform plate boundaries. Although some of the factors triggering partial melting and the mechanisms allowing the ascent of magma through the crust have been well studied in the past decades, the role of structural inheritance in triggering partial melting and creating preferential pathways for magma to rise through the crust and to the surface remains poorly understood.
Recent improvements and the development of new techniques in exploration geophysics, geochronology, numerical modelling, and the temporal and spatial resolution of data, make it now possible to better detect potential relationships both at regional and local scale. Examples of inheritance–magmatism interplay include but are not limited to fault-controlled mantle exhumation, partial melting at eroded anticlines, magmatic intrusions along fold axial cleavage, faults and shear zones, preexisting orogens controlling the formation of transform faults, triple junctions, radiating dyke swarms, Large Igneous Provinces, and core complexes.
These relationships may have profound implications for, e.g., the identification of natural resources, nature and origin of magma-rich/poor rifted margins, formation of seaward-dipping reflectors, morphology and seismicity of rifts and orogens, localization of transform faulting, formation of microcontinents, development of cratonic lithosphere, composition of anomalously thick crust (e.g., Iceland, Rio Grande–Walvis, Mozambique–Madagascar, Laxmi–Laccadive–Chagos, and South Tasman ridges), and plate and planetary tectonics (e.g., the supercontinent cycle).
We welcome contributions across the geosciences focusing on the interaction between structural inheritance and magmatism. Interdisciplinary studies combining various approaches, e.g., fieldwork, subsurface exploration, laboratory analysis, and/or modelling and fields, e.g., exploration for natural resources, geochemistry, geochronology, geodynamics, geophysics, mineralogy, petrology, seismic reflection, seismology, and structural geology, are particularly encouraged. The session aims at gathering scientists from various fields and with varied backgrounds to enhance discussion and multidisciplinary collaborations and identify potentially important causal relationships such as factors controlling partial melting, including the type and amount of magmatism.

Subduction zones are complex, evolving systems in which the downgoing plate, plate interface, mantle wedge, overriding plate and surrounding mantle interact across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. These interactions govern plate motions and deformation, shape mountain belts and sedimentary basins, drive mantle flow and chemical recycling, and generate much of Earth’s seismicity and volcanism. Yet fundamental questions remain about how subduction initiates, how it is maintained, why its geometry and style vary, and how subduction zones reorganize or cease.

This session focuses on the dynamics of the complete subduction system, from the surface and plate boundary to the transition zone and lower mantle. We invite contributions addressing subduction initiation, propagation, maturation and termination; slab geometry, strength and deformation; plate-interface coupling, seismicity and slow slip; mantle-wedge and sub-slab flow; overriding-plate deformation and topographic response; trench migration and slab rollback; flat-slab and stagnant-slab behaviour; tearing, break-off and delamination; interactions with ridges, plateaus, seamounts and inherited lithospheric structure; and slab penetration into, or stagnation within, the deep mantle.

We also welcome studies examining how rheology, thermal structure, phase transitions, hydration and dehydration, fluids, melts and compositional heterogeneity influence subduction dynamics and their surface expression. Contributions may address present-day or ancient systems and may use geophysical, geological, geodetic, geochemical and petrological observations, laboratory experiments, analytical theory or numerical models.

The subduction plate interface is Earth's most dynamic plate boundary. It hosts the planet's largest earthquakes and tsunamis, drives global crustal recycling, and governs global volatile budgets through CO2 and H2O fluxes between the surface and deep mantle. Deciphering its physical, mechanical, and chemical processes is essential for mitigating geohazards and understanding Earth's geological evolution.
A decade after the conclusion of a multi-disciplinary initiative, namely the European ITN ZIP (Zooming In between Plates), the subduction community has experienced ten years of rapid observational, technological and methodological advances. High-density geodetic and seismic networks, advanced marine geophysics, high-pressure rock deformation experiments, high-precision isotopic geochronology, 3D and 4D seismo-thermo-mechanical numerical models, as well as seismotectonic analogue models have fundamentally reshaped how we view the boundary between converging plates.
Despite past advancements, several key questions remain: how do transient rheologies interact to control megathrust earthquake nucleation, rupture propagation, and post-seismic relaxation? What governs the multi-scale spatial and temporal transitions from creep to seismic slip? How does mechanical mixing and stacking of tectonic slivers within the subduction channel alter mass and fluid fluxes from the shallow seismogenic zone down to the sub-arc mantle wedge?
Marking 10 years since the conclusion of the ZIP network, this session aims to review a decade of progress, to assess open questions, and to identify new directions in subduction interface research. We invite contributions from a broad, international pool of geoscientists from various disciplines.

The Tethyan Belt is the most prominent collisional zone on Earth, covering the vast area between far eastern Asia and Europe. The geological-tectonic evolution of the belt shows along-strike heterogeneity between its various regions, including the Indo-Burman Range, the Tibetan-Himalayan region, the Iranian Plateau, Anatolia and the Alps. The Tethyan Belt is the result of the subduction of the Tethyan Oceans, including significant terrane amalgamation, and collisional tectonics along the whole belt. The belt is today strongly affected by the ongoing convergence and collision between the Eurasian, African, Arabian and Indian plates. The long formation history and the variability of tectonic characteristics and deep structures of the belt make it a natural laboratory for understanding the accretion processes that have shaped the Earth through its history and have led to the formation of vast resources in the crust. A major role in the evolution of life by the Tethyan evolution has also been proposed.

We invite contributions based on geological, tectonic, geophysical and geodynamic studies of the Tethyan Belt. We particularly invite interdisciplinary studies, which integrate observational data and interpretations based on a variety of methods. This session will include contributions on the whole suite of studies of the Tethyan Belt with the aim of providing a comprehensive overview of its formation and evolution.

The Tethyan Belt is the most prominent collisional zone on Earth, covering the vast area between far eastern Asia and Europe. The geological-tectonic evolution of the belt shows along-strike heterogeneity between its various regions, including the Indo-Burman Range, the Tibetan-Himalayan region, the Iranian Plateau, Anatolia and the Alps. The Tethyan Belt is the result of the subduction of the Tethyan Oceans, including significant terrane amalgamation, and collisional tectonics along the whole belt. The belt is today strongly affected by the ongoing convergence and collision between the Eurasian, African, Arabian and Indian plates. The long formation history and the variability of tectonic characteristics and deep structures of the belt make it a natural laboratory for understanding the accretion processes that have shaped the Earth through its history and have led to the formation of vast resources in the crust. A major role in the evolution of life by the Tethyan evolution has also been proposed.

We invite contributions based on geological, tectonic, geophysical and geodynamic studies of the Tethyan Belt. We particularly invite interdisciplinary studies, which integrate observational data and interpretations based on a variety of methods. This session will include contributions on the whole suite of studies of the Tethyan Belt with the aim of providing a comprehensive overview of its formation and evolution.

Mid-ocean ridges, transform faults, and fracture zones provide natural laboratories to study the formation and evolution of oceanic lithosphere. Advances in deep-sea exploration, geophysical imaging, analytical techniques, and numerical modelling have improved our understanding of these systems. At the same time, observations from modern oceanic lithosphere provide constraints on the processes recorded in ancient oceanic and ophiolitic sequences.

The relative roles and interactions of magmatism, tectonic deformation, and hydrothermal circulation remain poorly constrained. Recent advances reveal significant complexity of transform faults and fracture zones, with increasing evidence for magmatism and hydrothermal circulation within and beyond the transform domain. Their role in fluid transport, heat transfer, and chemical exchange between the lithosphere and the ocean remains an open question.

This session brings together multidisciplinary studies of oceanic lithosphere along and beyond mid-ocean ridges, including transform faults, fracture zones, and off-axis regions. We welcome geological, geophysical, geochemical, petrological, and modelling studies, particularly those integrating complementary datasets or approaches. Contributions based on high-resolution deep-sea observations, ocean drilling, and geodynamic modelling are encouraged. The session also welcomes studies addressing ancient oceanic lithosphere and Proterozoic or Archean analogues.

The subduction plate interface is Earth's most dynamic plate boundary. It hosts the planet's largest earthquakes and tsunamis, drives global crustal recycling, and governs global volatile budgets through CO2 and H2O fluxes between the surface and deep mantle. Deciphering its physical, mechanical, and chemical processes is essential for mitigating geohazards and understanding Earth's geological evolution.
A decade after the conclusion of a multi-disciplinary initiative, namely the European ITN ZIP (Zooming In between Plates), the subduction community has experienced ten years of rapid observational, technological and methodological advances. High-density geodetic and seismic networks, advanced marine geophysics, high-pressure rock deformation experiments, high-precision isotopic geochronology, 3D and 4D seismo-thermo-mechanical numerical models, as well as seismotectonic analogue models have fundamentally reshaped how we view the boundary between converging plates.
Despite past advancements, several key questions remain: how do transient rheologies interact to control megathrust earthquake nucleation, rupture propagation, and post-seismic relaxation? What governs the multi-scale spatial and temporal transitions from creep to seismic slip? How does mechanical mixing and stacking of tectonic slivers within the subduction channel alter mass and fluid fluxes from the shallow seismogenic zone down to the sub-arc mantle wedge?
Marking 10 years since the conclusion of the ZIP network, this session aims to review a decade of progress, to assess open questions, and to identify new directions in subduction interface research. We invite contributions from a broad, international pool of geoscientists from various disciplines.

Every year brings new observations about earthquakes with a level of detail never reached before. In parallel, observational and computational methods keep improving significantly in seismology, geodesy, and in paleoseismology-geomorphology. Hence, on one hand, the number of earthquakes with well-documented rupture processes and deformation patterns is increasing. On the other hand, the number of studies documenting long time series of past earthquakes, including quantification of past deformation, has also increased. In parallel, the modeling community working on rupture dynamics, including earthquake cycle, is also making significant progress. Thus, this session is the opportunity to bring together these different contributions to foster further collaboration between the different groups all focusing on the same objective of integrating earthquake processes into the earthquake cycle framework and possibly use it for seismic hazard assessment. In this session, we welcome contributions documenting earthquake ruptures and processes, both for ancient events or more recent ones, such as the 2025 Myanmar earthquake, or the 2026 Venezuela doublet earthquakes for examples, from seismological, geodetic, or paleoseismological perspectives. Works combining different approaches are particularly welcome, as are contributions documenting deformation during pre-, post-, or interseismic periods, which are highly relevant to understanding earthquake cycles. We also seek contributions looking at the earthquake cycle from the modeling perspective, both numerical or analogue, especially including approaches that mix data and modeling. Finally, seismic hazard assessment works building on this multi-scales approach will also be considered.

Faults release tectonic strain through a wide and complex spectrum of slip behaviors, including aseismic creep, episodic slow-slip events and earthquakes. Field observations, seismological and geodetic data, laboratory experiments, and numerical modelling have shown that a range of factors, including structural and geometrical complexity, mechanical and rheological heterogeneities, fluid pressure and chemistry, and temperature, all interact across spatial and temporal scales to govern fault slip behavior. Yet, understanding how these interconnected factors control the occurrence of different slip modes and the transitions between them remains one of the fundamental challenges in earthquake science. This session welcomes contributions that investigate the wide range of fault slip behaviors using multidisciplinary and multiscale approaches, including field observations, structural and microstructural analyses, laboratory rock deformation experiments, geochemical and hydrological characterization of fault fluids, seismological and geodetic observations of active faults, and numerical modelling. We aim to foster discussion on the physicochemical and mechanical processes controlling fault strength, slip stability, rupture nucleation and propagation, and the evolution of fault zone geometry across the seismic cycle. By bringing together complementary perspectives across scales, this session seeks to improve seismic hazard assessment and our understanding of the mechanics of faulting and earthquakes.

Active fault systems record deformation across a wide range of spatial, temporal, and depth scales, from fault exposures and surface landforms to crustal structures, earthquake processes, and regional tectonic frameworks. Connecting these different scales is central to understanding how faults develop, interact, and accommodate deformation, and to building robust tectonic and seismotectonic models of active regions. Now in its fifth edition, this session provides an inclusive forum for the active-tectonics and seismotectonics community to present new observations, methodological developments and interpretations that advance our understanding of fault-system geometry, kinematics, evolution and seismogenic behaviour.
We welcome contributions ranging from detailed studies of individual faults and earthquake sequences to meso- and regional-scale investigations, across different tectonic regimes and geological settings, including volcanic and submarine environments. Field observations, structural geology, neotectonics, paleoseismology, tectonic geomorphology, remote sensing, geodesy, geophysics and seismology all provide complementary constraints on fault geometry and segmentation, slip rates, stress and strain fields, crustal deformation, fault interaction and tectonic evolution. Single-method studies, comparisons among techniques and multidisciplinary investigations are equally encouraged. The session welcomes contributions from researchers at all career stages, with particular encouragement to early-career scientists.
Particular interest is placed on studies that strengthen links between surface observations and fault geometry at seismogenic depth, connect deformation across different timescales, or place local fault behaviour within broader tectonic and seismotectonic frameworks. Numerical, analytical and analogue modelling, together with innovative computational approaches such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, are also welcome where they support the analysis, integration or interpretation of active-tectonic and seismotectonic information.
By bringing together diverse observations, methods and scales, the session aims to stimulate exchange across disciplines and advance transferable, testable models of active fault systems, their evolution and their relationship with earthquake occurrence and seismic hazard.

The manner in which faults are treated is rapidly changing. The simplistic view of a fault as a discrete 2D plane has been replaced by a view that regards faults as 3D features with a complex structure that consists of different zones with widely variable petrophysical characteristics. This complexity is reflected in the highly diverse behavior of faults, which is why fault analysis requires a wide range of concepts and tools. We solicit a broad spectrum of contributions that cover the topics of “fault mechanics”, “fault geometries”, “fault kinematics” and “fault behavior” (rupturing and creeping), using geological outcrop studies, geophysical methods (not restricted to the near-surface), experiments (friction or sand-box models) and numerical modeling studies. Especially welcome are holistic studies that combine these different approaches to achieve a better understanding of faults and outcrop studies of faults that reflect fault-related processes.

Geological Sciences represent a crucial perspective for investigating past earthquakes. Indeed, all moderate to strong crustal events produce direct and permanent effects on the earth surface (i.e. morphogenic earthquakes) and the role of "earthquake geologists" is to recognize, read, describe, measure, analyze and interpret all these linear and/or areal features. Geological investigations of past earthquakes can detect, measure and parametrize such features even several years (up to centuries or millennia) after they were formed. Moreover, Geological Sciences can investigate both single-event effects as well as the cumulative ones. Geological investigations of past events is also of primary importance for seismic hazard assessment, which requires the interplay of different disciplines and expertises. For example, geological studies can provide crucial information for regions where instrumental seismic records or detailed historical accounts are not available, but that generated destructive earthquakes in the past and may generate similar events in the future. Geological approaches to the investigation of past earthquakes are fundamental to contribute to determine or to infer important parameters for seismic hazard assessment, including the maximum credible magnitude, the return period for a given magnitude and the mean slip-rate. In this session, we welcome contributions describing and critically discussing any geological aspect of earthquakes and seismogenic faults. We are interested in studies based on any geological approaches and particularly on researches dealing with new and innovative methodological or multidisciplinary approaches. We look forward to a lively and cross-disciplinary programme that will bring together a broad range of expertises to discuss on the crucial contribution of Geological Sciences to the investigation of earthquakes and to seismic hazard assessment.

Subduction zones host a broad spectrum of seismic and aseismic activity, from the largest earthquakes on Earth to slow-slip events (SSEs) and tectonic tremors. These processes occur along the shallow megathrust, within the subducting slab, and on faults within the overriding plate. Understanding how short-term deformation and earthquake-cycle processes interact with the long-term tectonic evolution of convergent margins remains challenging. Earthquake occurrence, rupture size, and slip behaviour are influenced by several interacting factors, including the thermal and mechanical states of the subducting and overriding plates, fault-zone friction and rheology, megathrust structure, stress interactions, and fluid transport.

We invite multidisciplinary contributions addressing the mechanics controlling seismicity and fault deformation in subduction-zone settings, focusing on, but not limited to, the following questions: (i) How do the multiscale architecture of the megathrust and interacting faults control the spatial and temporal distribution of seismicity? (ii) How do rheological properties, stress interactions, and fluid and volatile transport govern transitions between different slip modes? (iii) Which physical processes produce the observed spectrum of coseismic and postseismic deformation? (iv) How do short-term earthquake-cycle processes interact with long-term tectonic processes in the subducting and overriding plates?

We encourage interdisciplinary contributions based on seismological, geodetic, geological, and other geophysical observations, as well as numerical and analogue modelling. By bringing together this broad range of disciplines and approaches, the session aims to assess the state of the art, identify current challenges, and discuss the coupling among processes operating across spatial and temporal scales, ultimately contributing to improved seismic and tsunami hazard assessment.

Understanding how faults and tectonic systems evolve requires reconciling observations from seconds to years for earthquake swarms, slow-slip events and aseismic creep; numerous years for geodetic strain accumulation; and thousands to millions of years for cumulative fault-slip, exhumation, and landscape evolution. These timescales are typically studied using diverse tools, from earthquake catalogues and GNSS timeseries to paleoseismology and geomorphology, yet the underlying question is shared: what physical processes underlie (or control) elastic strain accumulation on faults, and what is their impact on fault growth?

This session invites contributions that explicitly connect short- and long-term perspectives on active tectonics and seismicity. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: earthquake swarms and their relation to fluid migration, pore-pressure transients and aseismic slip; interseismic strain accumulation and fault creep from geodetic and seismological observations; fault slip rates over geodetic, earthquake and geological timescales; paleoseismology and earthquake histories from geological and geomorphological archives; the role of fluids and rheology in modulating seismic versus aseismic deformation across the brittle to ductile transition; and numerical or conceptual models that bridge earthquake-cycle and long-term tectonic evolution. We particularly welcome studies from actively extending, contracting, or transform continental settings (e.g. the Aegean-Anatolian region, the Apennines, the Basin and Range, East African and other rifts) and encourage interdisciplinary contributions linking seismic hazard assessment with the longer-term geological record.

This session focuses on studies that use space or sea-floor geodetic data in order to investigate and infer tectonic plate motions, deformation zones between and within plates, and the current status of earthquake cycles in different settings.

We are looking for studies that investigate how tectonic plates move through time, how such movements are accommodated in deformation zones, and how elastic strain builds up and is then released along faults and at plate boundaries. These studies should combine space or sea-floor geodesy with observations like seismicity, geological slip-rates and rakes, or sea-level and gravity changes.
Key questions concentrate on earthquake likelihood, fault slip-rates, uplift rates, non-elastic strain, and sea-level changes: How to best reference relative InSAR rate maps to plate motions? How to distinguish between horizontal/vertical InSAR signals in order to inform geodynamical inferences? How can we infer the likelihood of future earthquakes from elastic strain buildup? How persistent are fault asperities over multiple earthquake cycles? Are paleoseismic fault slip rates identical to those constrained by geodesy? What portion of plate motion results in earthquakes, and where does the rest go? How do mountains grow in the geologically-short term? How well can we constrain the stresses that drive the observed deformation? How much do the nearly-constant velocities of plates vary during the earthquake cycle, and does this influence the definition of Earth's reference frame?

The Central Mediterranean is characterized by a complex tectonic and geodynamic setting driven by the convergence of the African and Eurasian plates and shaped by the remnants of Alpine structures, ancient Tethyan subduction systems, as well as the interaction with the Adriatic microplate. Within this framework, the Ionian region represents a key area for understanding the ongoing deformation of the Central Mediterranean. Strong spatial variations in strain rates, together with a complex and diffuse plate-boundary configuration characterized this region with the highest seismic hazard in the Mediterranean region.
Despite extensive geological, geophysical, and seismological studies, significant uncertainties remain regarding the kinematics and geometry of major tectonic structures, including the Cephalonia–Lefkada Transform Fault. Fundamental questions also remain concerning crustal and upper-mantle structure, the geometry and activity of faults, and the geodynamic processes controlling present-day deformation and seismicity.
This session welcomes studies investigating the tectonic and geodynamic evolution of the Central Mediterranean, from the shallow crust to the upper mantle, using geological, geophysical, geodetic, and seismological approaches. We particularly encourage contributions addressing crustal and mantle structure, active fault systems, plate-boundary kinematics, deformation and seismicity, and the interaction between inherited structures and ongoing tectonic processes. The main goal is to bring together complementary observations and modelling approaches to improve our understanding of the current tectonic framework and the geodynamic mechanisms governing the present-day deformation and natural hazards of the Central Mediterranean.
This session is dedicated to the memory of César R. Ranero, who contributed enormously to advancing our understanding of this complex region of our world.

The Eastern Mediterranean is among the most tectonically active regions that evolved by the complex interaction of the three major plates: African, Arabian and Eurasian. Its geodynamic evolution involves a diverse range of tectonic processes, including subduction, continental collision, strike-slip faulting, large-scale extension, crustal block extrusion, and slab deformation. This region therefore provides a natural laboratory for investigating how lithospheric deformation develops and is accommodated across a broad range of spatial and temporal scales.

Devastating earthquakes have occurred along all of the major tectonic structures in the region, including the continental transform faults of the North Anatolian, East Anatolian, and Dead Sea fault systems, as well as the subduction zone along the Hellenic Arc, both throughout the historical records and in recent years. The interaction between shallow fault activity and deep-seated mantle processes remains an important and debated question. Recent destructive earthquakes have further highlighted the need for better understanding of the seismic cycle and the underlying geodynamic process that governs active deformation in the region.

We invite multidisciplinary contributions spanning neotectonics, seismology, tectonic geodesy (e.g., GNSS, InSAR), paleoseismology, tectonic geomorphology, structural geology, remote sensing, and geodynamic modelling to strengthen our comprehension of active tectonics and geodynamics in the Eastern Mediterranean. We particularly encourage submissions from early-career researchers.

Tectonic faults accommodate plate motion through a spectrum of seismic and aseismic slip that spans a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. Understanding the mechanics and interplay between these deformation modes is central to seismotectonics, as it directly influences the seismic hazard assessment. Fluids play a key role by modulating effective stress and interacting with the evolving permeability and porosity of fault zones. Such hydro-mechanical and chemical feedbacks can promote transitions between stable and unstable slip, influencing earthquake nucleation and arrest as well as the occurrence of slow fault slip phenomena. Advancing our understanding of these processes is essential for constraining the physical conditions that control fault slip behaviors. We invite contributions from observational, experimental, geological, and theoretical studies that explore the diversity and interplay among seismic and aseismic slip phenomena in various tectonic environments. Key questions include: (1) How do fluids, fault properties, and loading conditions shape the distribution of seismic versus aseismic slip? (2) Can the same fault patches host different slip behaviors over time? (3) What systematic spatial or temporal relations exist between aseismic and seismic slip?

Tectonic processes continuously reshape Earth’s surface, actively forming mountains, basins and modifying drainage networks. Through uplift, deformation and erosion, tectonics generates spatial and temporal variation in topography, substrate, soils and hydrology. These changes can influence the distribution and connectivity of habitats, create or remove dispersal barriers, generate refugia and influence patterns of species persistence, turnover, adaptation and diversification.
Despite increasing recognition of these links, the mechanisms and timescales through which tectonic and landscape processes influence biodiversity and their feedbacks remain poorly constrained. This session aims to bridge this gap by bringing together tectonics, geomorphology, geochronology, biogeography, ecology and evolutionary biology to explore these connections across spatial and temporal scales.
We invite contributions that explore how tectonic and surface processes influence landscape heterogeneity, habitat connectivity, environmental gradients, species distributions and diversification, and / or how biological processes affect Earth dynamics. We particularly encourage interdisciplinary studies combining geological/geographical and biological observations, models or datasets to identify and quantify the processes linking Earth dynamics, landscape evolution and biodiversity.

This session focuses on the structural deformation, crustal shortening, and tectonic evolution of orogen–basin systems. Adjacent sedimentary basins and mountain belts record the fundamental interplay between tectonic convergence and associated fault activity at lithospheric scale. We aim to bring together studies investigating how active faulting, folding, and lateral displacement individually and interactively shape the geometry, mechanics, and spatio-temporal evolution of orogens and basins. We encourage multi-scale, multi-disciplinary contributions, particularly those leveraging emerging methods and addressing societal or environmental implications. Key topics include: Convergent tectonic settings including kinematics, mechanics, and structural styles of fold-and-thrust systems, and the quantification of crustal shortening across orogen–basin boundaries; active faulting and basin dynamics including magnitudes of displacement, slip rates, and kinematics of major faults, alongside the architecture, subsidence, and structural controls on critical resources (e.g., energy, minerals, groundwater) associated basins; strain partitioning and mantle-to-surface interactions including: the interplay of kinematics and strain accommodation between coeval or sequential contractional and active faulting, palaeostress evolution, and feedbacks with surface processes; novel approaches and methodological advances including the application of advanced technological capabilities — including high-resolution remote sensing/LiDAR, machine learning, advanced thermochronology, 3D/4D seismic imaging, geodetic modeling (InSAR/GPS), and high-resolution numerical or analogue simulations. We welcome contributions across diverse and disciplines as well as spatial and temporal frameworks to test and refine Earth System hypotheses.

The evolution of orogens and sedimentary basins is driven by the complex interplay between crustal deformation, mantle dynamics, and climate-driven surface processes. Despite longstanding recognition of their importance, the feedback mechanisms linking erosion, sediment transport and deposition, to crustal tectonics, and mantle dynamics — including magmatism — remain an area of intense research. In particular, the overall source to sink system from eroding orogens to subsiding lacustrine or marine basins and their sedimentary infill remains elusive.

Advancing our understanding of these coupled systems requires an interdisciplinary approach. A major challenge lies in quantifying uplift, erosion, subsidence, and sedimentation, while distinguishing the respective roles of crustal deformation, mantle flow, and climate-driven processes — each acting across different spatial and temporal scales and often leaving overlapping signals in the geological record.

This session brings together comprehensive studies that integrate observational data (e.g., field studies, geophysical and well data, thermochronology), theoretical frameworks, and both analogue and numerical modelling. Our goal is to foster dialogue between disciplines and highlight innovative approaches that bridge mantle, lithospheric, crustal, and surface processes.
We welcome contributions that explore the coupling of tectonics and surface processes, including the roles of climate, erosion, sedimentation, and deep Earth dynamics in shaping the Earth's surface over time.

Deep-Earth processes such as slab stagnation, folding and avalanching at the mantle transition zone, slab tearing and break-off in the upper mantle, and mantle upwellings and downwellings can influence surface deformation and topography, basin subsidence and uplift, magmatism, sedimentation and drainage evolution. Distinguishing these signals from those produced by crustal and lithospheric processes, climate, and surface dynamics remains a major challenge.
We invite contributions integrating geological records, geophysical observations, geochemistry, petrology, and numerical or analogue modelling to investigate the surface expression of deep mantle and slab dynamics. Particular emphasis is placed on distinguishing deep-Earth forcing from crustal, lithospheric, and climatic controls, and on identifying diagnostic observations that link processes at depth to the evolution of Earth’s surface.

Earth topography and its subsurface are the result of complex interactions between tectonics and climate. Sediments in the shallow subsurface contain resources including water and energy that are vital for mankind. They also provide temporary and long-term waste and energy storage. At the same time active deformation and rapid climate change interact posing significant risk for natural hazards such as debris flow, hillslope instabilities, and active faulting. To address these pressing challenges in the realm of Earth-climate interactions, it is imperative to enhance our expertise in connecting extensive datasets with deterministic forward models. This session aims to bring together research on climate - surface processes - tectonics interactions across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales using big-data informed models focussing on fundamental questions: (1) What are the short- and long-term interactions of the tectonic-surface process feedback system? (2) What is the influence of on-going climate change on the frequency and magnitude of rapid geomorphic events such as landslides and debris flow and how is this influenced by surface morphology and environmental conditions? (3) How is the subsurface responding to short-term climate variability including anthropogenic climate change and how does this affect water and energy resources? (4) How do tectonic processes such as mountain building, continental rifting, and mantle flow respond to changes in global climatic events and surface-mass transfers and how do inherited structures control this response? (5) How can we integrate and exploit big data in the Earth sciences to better constrain coupled geodynamic, surface process, and climate models?

Earth's climate has undergone pronounced changes across geological time, from greenhouse states to icehouse conditions and back, to name just a few of the changes. While orbital forcing and carbon-cycle feedbacks are well established as pacemakers of Quaternary glacial cycles, the slower geodynamic processes that set the baseline climate state and modulate it on million-year timescales remain actively debated. Plate tectonics governs the carbon cycle at its source through volcanic degassing, and at its sink, through the uplift of terrains that accelerate chemical weathering. Seafloor spreading rates and the lengths of mid-ocean ridges, continental configuration and position, and the opening and closing of ocean gateways reshape global ocean circulation and heat transport. Large igneous province eruptions have been implicated in mass extinctions and hyperthermal events, while orogenesis and continental rifting alter atmospheric circulation patterns and the long-term drawdown of CO2.

This session invites contributions that explore the connections between solid-Earth dynamics and climate across all timescales - from the multi-hundred-million-year supercontinent cycle to million-year and sub-million-year variability. We welcome observational, modeling, and data-driven studies, including plate kinematic reconstructions, mantle convection simulations, paleoclimate proxy analyses, geochemical models, and statistical or spectral approaches that quantify the co-evolution of tectonic and climatic records. We particularly encourage contributions that bridge disciplinary boundaries linking geodynamic forcing functions to their surface expression in the sedimentary, geochemical, and paleobiological records.

Earth's climate has undergone pronounced changes across geological time, from greenhouse states to icehouse conditions and back, to name just a few of the changes. While orbital forcing and carbon-cycle feedbacks are well established as pacemakers of Quaternary glacial cycles, the slower geodynamic processes that set the baseline climate state and modulate it on million-year timescales remain actively debated. Plate tectonics governs the carbon cycle at its source through volcanic degassing, and at its sink, through the uplift of terrains that accelerate chemical weathering. Seafloor spreading rates and the lengths of mid-ocean ridges, continental configuration and position, and the opening and closing of ocean gateways reshape global ocean circulation and heat transport. Large igneous province eruptions have been implicated in mass extinctions and hyperthermal events, while orogenesis and continental rifting alter atmospheric circulation patterns and the long-term drawdown of CO2.

This session invites contributions that explore the connections between solid-Earth dynamics and climate across all timescales - from the multi-hundred-million-year supercontinent cycle to million-year and sub-million-year variability. We welcome observational, modeling, and data-driven studies, including plate kinematic reconstructions, mantle convection simulations, paleoclimate proxy analyses, geochemical models, and statistical or spectral approaches that quantify the co-evolution of tectonic and climatic records. We particularly encourage contributions that bridge disciplinary boundaries linking geodynamic forcing functions to their surface expression in the sedimentary, geochemical, and paleobiological records.

Geological processes are generally too slow, too rare, or too deep to be observed in-situ or to be monitored with a resolution high enough to understand their dynamics. Analogue models and numerical simulations have thus become an integral part of the Earth explorer's toolbox to select, formulate, and test hypotheses on the origin and evolution of geological phenomena.

To foster synergy between the rather independently evolving experimentalists and modelers, we provide a multi-disciplinary platform to discuss research on tectonics, structural geology, rock mechanics, geodynamics, volcanology, geomorphology, and sedimentology.

We therefore invite contributions demonstrating the state-of-the-art in analogue/physical and numerical/analytical modelling on a variety of spatial and temporal scales. We encourage diversity in the applications from earthquakes, landslides and volcanic eruptions to sedimentary processes, plate tectonics and landscape evolution. We are particularly interested in sharing experiences through presentations that discuss model strengths and weaknesses, expose limitations and challenges, explore comparisons and coupling between different modelling techniques to more realistically simulate and better understand Earth's behavior.

What can thermochronology resolve today, and where can it take us next? Linking methodological advances with geological questions is central to expanding the capabilities and applications of thermochronology. This session brings the thermochronology community together to exchange approaches and findings across regions and disciplines.

We welcome contributions addressing (1) theoretical and experimental advances that introduce new thermochronometers or improve our understanding of conventional systems, including fission-track, (U-Th)/He, ⁴He/³He, ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar, Raman, and trapped-charge methods; (2) approaches to data interpretation, thermal history and thermokinematic modelling that assess uncertainties and test geological scenarios; (3) integration of thermochronology with complementary evidence such as geomorphology, remote sensing or isotopic methods; and (4) geological applications constraining the timing, magnitude and rates of lithospheric and Earth-surface processes across spatial and temporal scales. Applications may range from tectonics and exhumation to landscape evolution and sedimentary histories, while also exploring weathering, hydrothermalism, and ore deposit formation and preservation. Both established uses and new directions have a place in this session. Across these themes, we encourage discussion of unexpected results and interpretative limitations alongside methodological advances and geological findings.

Seismic exploration methods continue to evolve through advances in acquisition strategies, processing workflows, attribute analysis, seismic inversion, and quantitative interpretation. At the same time, the application of seismic data has expanded well beyond traditional hydrocarbon exploration into fields such as carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), geothermal energy, groundwater characterization, active tectonics, and subsurface infrastructure assessment. These developments are creating new opportunities for imaging geological structures across a wide range of scales while also enabling the extraction of increasingly quantitative geological information from seismic datasets through attribute analysis, inversion techniques, and integrated interpretation workflows.

This session aims to bring together geologists, geophysicists, and industry professionals working on methodological developments and innovative applications of 2D and 3D seismic reflection data. We welcome contributions addressing emerging challenges in seismic imaging, interpretation, and subsurface characterization, with applications spanning, basin analysis, CCUS, geothermal systems, reservoir characterization, groundwater studies, and active tectonics.

Numerical models are central to understanding the multi-physics processes governing the Earth's evolution, from mantle convection and lithospheric deformation to magmatic systems, faulting, and natural and engineered reservoirs. These processes couple hydrological, thermal, chemical and mechanical effects whose nonlinear interactions lead to spontaneous localisation of flow and deformation, posing persistent challenges for discretisation, solvers and computational resources.

The way such models are built is changing rapidly. Heterogeneous HPC architectures, differentiable programming and machine learning increasingly allow forward models to be tightly integrated with observations for inversion and uncertainty quantification. At the same time, AI-assisted and agent-based software development is reshaping how scientific codes are written, ported, tested and maintained. This raises new questions about verification, reproducibility and trust.

We invite contributions from three complementary themes:

1/ Computational advances
- Novel spatial and/or temporal discretisations for forward and inverse models
- Scalable, performance-portable HPC implementations (multi-vendor GPUs, multi-core), including energy efficiency
- Solver and preconditioner developments
- Hybrid physics–ML approaches: surrogates, neural operators, learned closures and ML-accelerated solvers
- Automatic differentiation (AD) and differentiable programming

2/ Theoretical and applied advances
- Development of PDEs describing geological processes
- Adjoint-based, Bayesian and ensemble inversion; uncertainty quantification
- Model validation against observables and data assimilation
- Coupled models exploring nonlinear interactions, and scientific discovery enabled by new modelling approaches

3/ Research software and development practices
- AI-assisted and agentic workflows for code development, porting of legacy codes, testing and documentation, including lessons learnt and limitations
- Verification of scientific software, AI-generated or not: benchmarks, manufactured solutions, convergence studies
- Code and methodology comparisons (community benchmarks)
- Open, reproducible and sustainable modelling software ecosystems

The dynamics of magmatic systems are driven by complex processes that span from deep mantle melt generation to volcanic eruptions at the surface. These processes include: melt generation in the upper mantle and lower crust, magma transport, differentiation and emplacement in the crust, complex melt-rock interactions, genesis of energy and mineral resources, and volcanic extrusions with related hazards. Such fluid-mechanical and thermo-chemical processes operate across sub-millimetre to kilometre scales and timescales ranging from seconds to millions of years , and involve multiple phases, such as liquid melt, solid crystals, volatile and metal-bearing fluids, and pyroclasts. Understanding these processes requires a multidisciplinary approach, combining observations, experiments, and computational methods including forward and inverse modelling and machine learning.

Despite the crucial role of computational methods in integrating and interpreting data from various sources, there has been limited development of a dedicated community across volcanic, petrology, and magmatic studies. For the fourth consecutive year, this session aims to address this gap by focusing on computational approaches to understanding volcanic and magmatic systems. We seek to bring together researchers working on forward and inverse modelling, machine learning, and other computational methods to foster a thriving and collaborative community that complements well-established observational and experimental lines of work.

We encourage contributions that explore the theory, development, application, and validation of computational approaches for integrating and interpreting experimental and observational data to improve our understanding of volcanic and magmatic processes. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

- Multiphase flow dynamics
- Thermodynamics and phase equilibria
- Magma transport and storage
- Chemical and rheological melt-rock interactions
- Crystallization, immiscibility, and degassing processes
- Energy and mineral resource genesis
- Magma-hydrothermal interactions
- Eruption dynamics and hazards

This session aims to provide a platform for in-depth technical discussions that are challenging to facilitate in broader multidisciplinary sessions, ultimately fostering a stronger computational community within volcanic and magmatic studies.

Although less frequent, impactful moderate magnitude co-seismic surface rupturing earthquakes occur in intraplate and low strain regions, demonstrating that faults in those regions are capable of hosting moderate-size to large damaging earthquakes. Nonetheless, fault activity and seismicity are generally difficult to assess: at these settings, surface processes rates may erase or bury evidence, and deformation may also be accommodated by reactivation of exhumed older fault systems, generally with wide fault zones, favoring distributed brittle deformation within a previously deformed bedrock, thus masking subtle Quaternary deformation. Furthermore, sparse seismic and geodetic networks limit correlation of seismicity and surface deformation with structures.

Evidence for long-term deformation, provided through geomorphic analyses and detailed geologic and paleoseismologic studies combined with geochronology and geophysical data, are a key to recognize a built-in imprint of deformation through time, and to corroborate tectonic activity. These are crucial to reveal Quaternary cryptic structures, constrain regions with seismogenic potential and required to understand distributed Quaternary deformation. Short-term activity and deformation can be investigated using dense local seismic networks, which may further help to associate local instrumental seismicity with faults localization. Depending on the strain and period of observation, remote sensing and geodesy may also highlight noteworthy regions.

Intraplate regions record deformation, vertical motion, and magmatism far from active plate boundaries. These responses reflect interactions among changes in plate motion, lithospheric stress transmission, inherited structures, surface loads, rheology, and mantle dynamics. Lithosphere–upper-mantle models and plate-reconstruction-informed mantle-flow models provide broad-scale kinematic and dynamic frameworks, while geological, geophysical, and geochemical records reveal how these processes are expressed at regional and local scales. Connecting these perspectives can improve our understanding of how plate–mantle–lithosphere interactions generate diverse intraplate responses.
This session brings together observational, computational, and theoretical studies of intraplate deformation, vertical motion, and magmatism and their links to plate and mantle dynamics. We welcome contributions addressing intraplate deformation and the reactivation of inherited structures; uplift and subsidence recorded by unconformities, sedimentary basins, drowned platforms, and lithospheric flexure; and the distribution, composition, timing, and age progression of intraplate magmatism, including seamount chains and continental volcanic provinces. We also invite studies exploring how changes in surface loading associated with climate, particularly glacial loading and unloading, influence intraplate stress, fault reactivation, vertical motion, and magmatic systems.
Contributions may draw on field observations, geophysical data, petrological and geochemical analyses, geochronology, plate reconstructions, and numerical models, individually or in combination. Studies of both oceanic and continental plates are encouraged. We particularly welcome studies that compare observations with model predictions, integrate evidence across spatial and temporal scales, or quantify model sensitivity and uncertainty. Our aim is to foster collaboration across disciplines and develop more integrated and better-constrained interpretations of intraplate processes.

In the 60 years since its acceptance, the theory of plate tectonics revolutionised the way we interpret the evolution of our planet, the formation and distribution of its resources, as well as how this supported - or suppressed - life. However, the theory has not been static since the 1960s, with many discussions regarding the role of how the supercontinent cycle, the Wilson cycle, mantle dynamics, and syn-drift tectonics fit within the theory, alongside the creation of (forward and backward) deep time reconstructions. In this session, we welcome contributions to look to the future of the theory of plate tectonics: what are we still missing in our understanding of tectonic features?

A list of potential topics and open questions include (but are not limited to): Are tectonic features more local exceptions than global rule? Are tectonics a bottom-up consequence or a top-down driver of geodynamics? How is interior/exterior cycling of material affected by plate tectonics? Is there a dominant mechanism for plate tectonic features of rifting and orogenesis? Can subduction begin spontaneously and has it changed over Earth’s history? Is there a deep time limit to plate reconstruction histories? When did plate tectonics begin? When will it end? Can there ever be Earth-like plate tectonics on another planet? Is plate tectonics a rule or an exception in the geodynamic cooling history of a rocky planet?

This session invites you to share your work and join the Tectonics and Structural Geology community to explore the future of plate tectonics 60 years on from its acceptance.

It is becoming clear that Wilson Cycle processes including rifting, drifting, inversion, and orogenesis are more complex than standard models suggest. Observations and models showcase the significance of inherited geological structures, lithospheric rheology, time-dependence, surface processes, magmatism, obliquity, and geometry in processes of rifting, drifting, accretion, collision and orogeny. However, our understanding of the role and interaction of these factors remains far from complete. Unexpected observations such as continental material far offshore (e.g. Rio Grande Rise), wide-magmatic rifted margins (e.g. Laxmi Basin), extensive subsidence and sedimentation during rift-basin inversion (e.g. Pannonian basin), and thermal imprinting from continental rifting affecting subsequent orogenesis (e.g. Pyrenees) continue to challenge conventional models and exemplify the need for further work on Wilson Cycle processes.

This session will bring together new observations, models, and ideas to help understand the complex factors influencing the Wilson Cycle. Works investigating time-dependence, inheritance, plate kinematics, strain localization, magmatism, obliquity, interior plate deformation, driving forces, sedimentation, surface processes, lithospheric/crustal structure, and the interaction/feedback between processes controlling the Wilson Cycle are therefore welcomed to this session.

Contributions from any geoscience discipline, including but not limited to geophysics, marine geosciences, seismology, ocean drilling, geochemistry, petrology, plate kinematics, tectonics, sedimentology, field and structural geology, numerical and analogue modelling, or thermo/geochronology etc., are sought. We particularly encourage cross-disciplinary, innovative, thought-provoking, and convention challenging studies spanning different spatio-temporal scales. Contributions are welcomed from all researchers of any background, and of course especially students.

It is becoming clear that Wilson Cycle processes including rifting, drifting, inversion, and orogenesis are more complex than standard models suggest. Observations and models showcase the significance of inherited geological structures, lithospheric rheology, time-dependence, surface processes, magmatism, obliquity, and geometry in processes of rifting, drifting, accretion, collision and orogeny. However, our understanding of the role and interaction of these factors remains far from complete. Unexpected observations such as continental material far offshore (e.g. Rio Grande Rise), wide-magmatic rifted margins (e.g. Laxmi Basin), extensive subsidence and sedimentation during rift-basin inversion (e.g. Pannonian basin), and thermal imprinting from continental rifting affecting subsequent orogenesis (e.g. Pyrenees) continue to challenge conventional models and exemplify the need for further work on Wilson Cycle processes.

This session will bring together new observations, models, and ideas to help understand the complex factors influencing the Wilson Cycle. Works investigating time-dependence, inheritance, plate kinematics, strain localization, magmatism, obliquity, interior plate deformation, driving forces, sedimentation, surface processes, lithospheric/crustal structure, and the interaction/feedback between processes controlling the Wilson Cycle are therefore welcomed to this session.

Contributions from any geoscience discipline, including but not limited to geophysics, marine geosciences, seismology, ocean drilling, geochemistry, petrology, plate kinematics, tectonics, sedimentology, field and structural geology, numerical and analogue modelling, or thermo/geochronology etc., are sought. We particularly encourage cross-disciplinary, innovative, thought-provoking, and convention challenging studies spanning different spatio-temporal scales. Contributions are welcomed from all researchers of any background, and of course especially students.

Cratons preserve some of Earth’s oldest continental crust and provide fundamental insights into the formation, stabilization, and dynamics of the early continents. Their emergence established long-lived, stable environments that may have influenced the development and persistence of early life. While many cratons survived since Archean, advances in seismic imaging, integrated with geochemical and geological observations suggests that some of them are modified or even destroyed in the recent past. While the mechanisms of destruction and modification remain debated, their destabilisation of the cratonic lithosphere may have disrupted deep lithospheric reservoirs, facilitating the release of volatiles into the atmosphere and establishing an important link between Earth’s deep interior, lithosphere, and atmosphere. This connection further emphasizes the economical significance of cratons, as the primary repository of diamonds and critical minerals essential for modern technologies, making their study central to the energy transition. For this session, we invite multidisciplinary contributions including but not limited to geodynamics, geochemistry, geology, seismology, and biogeodynamics. The focus is on investigating craton dynamics and its critical role in shaping Earth’s processes, from early planetary development to modern geological history.

Cratons preserve some of Earth’s oldest continental crust and provide fundamental insights into the formation, stabilization, and dynamics of the early continents. Their emergence established long-lived, stable environments that may have influenced the development and persistence of early life. While many cratons survived since Archean, advances in seismic imaging, integrated with geochemical and geological observations suggests that some of them are modified or even destroyed in the recent past. While the mechanisms of destruction and modification remain debated, their destabilisation of the cratonic lithosphere may have disrupted deep lithospheric reservoirs, facilitating the release of volatiles into the atmosphere and establishing an important link between Earth’s deep interior, lithosphere, and atmosphere. This connection further emphasizes the economical significance of cratons, as the primary repository of diamonds and critical minerals essential for modern technologies, making their study central to the energy transition. For this session, we invite multidisciplinary contributions including but not limited to geodynamics, geochemistry, geology, seismology, and biogeodynamics. The focus is on investigating craton dynamics and its critical role in shaping Earth’s processes, from early planetary development to modern geological history.

Geothermal energy and the subsurface storage of CO₂ and hydrogen are key components of the energy transition. Their performance, safety, and long-term viability depend on subsurface properties such as permeability, fracture networks, fault architecture, in-situ stress, and thermal conditions. These properties are not static, but reflect the cumulative effects of tectonic, structural, and thermal processes acting over millions of years. Understanding the present-day geometry and physical properties of subsurface systems is therefore only part of the challenge: assessing their behaviour and suitability for energy applications also requires understanding how they evolved into their current state.
In particular, structural observations provide constraints on the geometry, kinematics and timing of deformation, as the development of fault fracture systems; thermochronological data constrain cooling, exhumation, and thermal evolution. Moreover, geophysical observations show the present-day structures and mechanical response of the subsurface, including its behaviour during fluid injection. The integration of geological and geophysical datasets can further provide three-dimensional constraints linking structural architecture to rock physical and hydraulic properties, including fluid pathways and subsurface heterogeneity.
We invite contributions investigating how tectonic and thermal histories influence reservoir architecture and quality, permeability and fluid pathways, containment and leakage potential, geothermal productivity, and the mechanical and seismic response of the subsurface.
By connecting fundamental research on tectonic and thermal evolution with subsurface characterization and energy applications, this session aims to foster interdisciplinary discussion on how geological knowledge can improve the assessment, management, and sustainable use of subsurface systems for the energy transition.

Global demand for critical metals is rising sharply, driven by the energy transition, electrification, and geopolitical pressure on supply chains, while historically high gold prices have made lower-grade and more geologically challenging precious-metal resources economically attractive to mine. Deformation plays a central role in this challenge: it can remobilise, concentrate, or trap metals at scales ranging from crystal defects to orogen-scale structures, controlling where these resources ultimately reside. This session explores how structural processes, from dislocation-scale metal siting in ore minerals to dilational sites hosting mineralised veins and intrusions, govern the distribution of precious and critical metals, and what this means for meeting future supply needs. We welcome contributions examining ore-forming processes genetically linked to deformation, resolving micro- to nano-scale controls on metal distribution and mobilisation, or establishing how crustal deformation governs ore distribution and what that implies for designing effective exploration strategies.

Accurate knowledge of the subsurface stress state and mechanical behaviour is fundamental across a broad spectrum of geoscientific and engineering disciplines — from understanding plate tectonics, geohazards, and mass transport to the development of subsurface resources and infrastructure. The characterisation and management of geo-reservoirs, including geothermal energy, carbon sequestration, hydrogen and gas storage, and nuclear waste repositories, depend strongly on understanding the in situ stress, rock mechanical behaviour, deformation, and fault stability. Mining is another major frontier, as both open-pit and underground operations move to greater depths, encountering complex geological structures, heterogeneous rock masses, and challenging stress conditions, and require improved understanding and prediction of geomechanics.

Yet measuring, constraining, and predicting subsurface geomechanics remains inherently challenging and are subject to significant uncertainties. Addressing these challenges requires continued advances in laboratory and field measurements, modelling and inversion approaches, data integration, and emerging computational techniques — including the rapidly growing capabilities of machine learning and artificial intelligence.

This session invites contributions presenting novel methodologies, emerging approaches, and ambitious case studies spanning the full breadth of geomechanical research, from laboratory and field observations to numerical modelling, uncertainty analysis, and AI-driven approaches. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Advances in stress orientation and magnitude characterisation
- Novel laboratory and field techniques for stress characterisation
- Advances in 3D and 4D geomechanical modelling across spatial and temporal scales
- Machine learning and AI-driven approaches
- Data-driven integration of geological, geophysical, borehole and remote sensing observations
- Advances in computational methods, inversion techniques, and uncertainty analysis
- Innovative case studies

This session aims to bring together engineers, modellers, and computational experts from academia and industry to discuss the latest advances and persistent challenges in geomechanics. By bridging observations, experiments, modelling, uncertainty, and emerging AI-based approaches, the session seeks to promote interdisciplinary exchange and help shape the next generation of geomechanical methods, tools, and applications.

In this session, we solicit contributions that are of general interest to the tectonics and structural geology community. The range of topics is entirely open, creating a space for abstracts whose content does not align with any of the specific themes of the other proposed sessions. Contributions thought to bridge disciplines or emphasize a specialist field are very welcome. We will define sub-themes based on the abstracts that come in. This is the session to place your unusual, interesting, not-in-the-box research!

Tectonics and structural geology encompasses the study of deformation, faulting, Earth’s structure and tectonic processes across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales.
Societally, tectonics and structural geology research is important for nuclear waste disposal, geothermal energy, understanding of geohazards, carbon capture and storage, underground hydrogen storage, critical minerals, and resilient infrastructure. Policymakers require science-based evidence when making decisions to address these societal challenges, often in the presence of incomplete data and scientific uncertainty. As a division, our research spans a large range of spatial and temporal scales, allowing us to provide constraints on, for example, the formation and distribution of critical raw minerals, the recurrence of geohazards, the long-term stability of nuclear waste storage, and the suitability and safety of subsurface storage.
In this session we hear from Tectonics and Structural Geology researchers who have engaged with policymakers, as well as from policymakers who work with scientists and scientific evidence. This session aims to demonstrate the wide-ranging societal relevance of the Tectonics and Structural Geology division and shed light on the process of translating scientific knowledge into policy and decision making.
These talks will be followed by time for discussion where we invite members to ask questions and share their views on the future direction of our field. We invite the community to reflect on the rewards and challenges of engaging with science for policy, how scientific uncertainty is communicated and incorporated into decisions, and the broader societal applications of our research.

Abstracts by invitation only.

Salt and shale tectonics play a fundamental role in controlling the structural and stratigraphic evolution of sedimentary basins and mountain belts. Their complex rheological behaviour strongly influences deformation patterns, sedimentary systems, basin architecture, and the coupling between deep crustal processes and shallow deformation. Despite major advances over recent decades, many questions remain regarding the initiation, evolution, and dynamics of salt- and shale-related deformation and their interactions with regional tectonics and sedimentation.
This session welcomes recent advances in salt and shale tectonics across a broad range of tectonic settings, including extensional, contractional, strike-slip, and gravity-driven systems such as rifted margins. We invite contributions from both onshore and offshore settings, encompassing a wide variety of approaches, including subsurface and outcrop studies, seismic imaging and processing, numerical and analogue modelling, experimental approaches, and rock-mechanics analyses.
We particularly encourage contributions addressing salt and shale tectonics across multiple spatial and temporal scales, from the relationships between crustal-scale tectonics, evaporite deposition, and salt deformation in sedimentary basins and mountain belts, to the interactions between salt bodies and their surrounding sediments, and deformation within evaporite sequences themselves. Studies investigating the coupling between tectonics, sedimentation, and salt or shale mobility are particularly encouraged, together with contributions addressing applied aspects of salt tectonics, including drilling-related geohazards associated with salt structures.
Contributions focusing on shale tectonics, as well as studies exploring similarities, differences, and interactions between salt- and shale-driven deformation, are also especially welcome. By bringing together observations, imaging, experiments, and modelling, this session aims to foster discussion of recent advances, unresolved questions, and future directions in salt and shale tectonics.

Sedimentary basin evolution reflects interactions between tectonic deformation, surface processes and salt movement. Pre-existing basement fabrics and fault systems can localize deformation and affect accommodation through successive tectonic phases, from rifting to shortening and inversion. Resolving these inherited controls is critical for distinguishing newly formed structures from reactivated ones and for explaining changes in deformation style and depocentre location through time.
Salt adds a mobile, mechanically weak layer to this evolving system. Tectonic deformation and differential sediment loading can initiate or reactivate salt evacuation, as can changes in subsidence and basin tilting. Salt movement, in turn, can decouple basement and cover deformation, and influence fault growth and folding. These interactions also affect sediment routing and the location of depocentres. Distinguishing the effects of regional tectonics from deformation generated or modified by salt is fundamental to reconstructing basin evolution.
We welcome studies addressing structural inheritance, salt tectonics, or their interaction across a range of tectonic settings, from individual structures to basin and lithospheric scales. Contributions may draw on field observations, seismic and other geophysical investigations, or analogue and numerical modelling. Studies integrating complementary approaches are particularly welcome, as those with implications for geohazards, natural resources, and geological storage.

On Earth, plate tectonics is closely coupled to mantle upwellings and downwellings which help drive the dynamic system. In this session, we explore the complex interactions between mantle plumes and plate tectonics, including how mantle plumes may interact with tectonic processes across a range of settings, from continental rifts and mid-ocean ridges to subduction zones, and are themselves modified by tectonics. Such interactions may include, but are not limited to, plume-induced lithospheric thinning and continental rifting (and associated excess melting), the deflection of rising conduits by subducting slabs and cratonic roots, and the geochemical exchange between plume melts and the lithosphere they traverse. In systems such as Iceland and Afar, there are observed interactions between rifting and mantle plume upwelling, yet the extent to which these processes influence one another remains unclear. Similarly, the nature of the relationship between subducting slabs and plumes, where they interact, is complex and may be fundamental to understanding some of the small- and large-scale patterns of convection, LIP emplacement, and hotspot systems. Together these gaps highlight how plumes both modify, and are modified by, plate tectonics.

We invite contributions from across geosciences including, but not limited to, numerical and analogue modelling, geochemistry, petrology, geophysics, volcanology, seismology, planetary science and tectonics. We especially encourage cross-disciplinary studies spanning different spatio-temporal scales and approaches which will foster conversations on emerging questions and future directions in the study of plume-tectonic interactions, particularly among early career researchers.

On Earth, plate tectonics is closely coupled to mantle upwellings and downwellings which help drive the dynamic system. In this session, we explore the complex interactions between mantle plumes and plate tectonics, including how mantle plumes may interact with tectonic processes across a range of settings, from continental rifts and mid-ocean ridges to subduction zones, and are themselves modified by tectonics. Such interactions may include, but are not limited to, plume-induced lithospheric thinning and continental rifting (and associated excess melting), the deflection of rising conduits by subducting slabs and cratonic roots, and the geochemical exchange between plume melts and the lithosphere they traverse. In systems such as Iceland and Afar, there are observed interactions between rifting and mantle plume upwelling, yet the extent to which these processes influence one another remains unclear. Similarly, the nature of the relationship between subducting slabs and plumes, where they interact, is complex and may be fundamental to understanding some of the small- and large-scale patterns of convection, LIP emplacement, and hotspot systems. Together these gaps highlight how plumes both modify, and are modified by, plate tectonics.

We invite contributions from across geosciences including, but not limited to, numerical and analogue modelling, geochemistry, petrology, geophysics, volcanology, seismology, planetary science and tectonics. We especially encourage cross-disciplinary studies spanning different spatio-temporal scales and approaches which will foster conversations on emerging questions and future directions in the study of plume-tectonic interactions, particularly among early career researchers.

The geodynamics of Southeast Asia presents a wide range of processes operating both at Earth’s surface and Earth’s deep interior, which together have shaped the evolution of our planet since the onset of plate tectonics. These processes include continental rifting and marginal basin rifting, long- to short-lived oceanic subduction, arc- and plume-related magmatism, collisional orogeny, and arc accretion. Many of these processes are ongoing today or were active during the Cenozoic, providing opportunities for detailed study. Main unknowns on the geodynamics of SE Asia include questions on the reconstruction of the proto-South China Sea plate, paleo-Pacific subduction, and proto-Philippines Sea plate as well as the connection with the Tethyan realm to the south, the collision of Australian-derived fragments in eastern Indonesia and associated extension processes. To address these issues, we invite contributions from across the Earth sciences, including field-based geology, geochronology, geochemistry of detrital minerals and magmas, seismology, geodynamic and thermo-mechanical modeling, and plate kinematic and tectonic reconstructions.

The Caribbean supra-subduction system has undergone continuous evolution and repeated reorganizations since the Late Mesozoic, while remaining intensely active today. Subduction, arc and back-arc dynamics interact with major strike-slip systems, collision zones and distributed deformation, together shaping a broad, complex and evolving plate-boundary region. The geological record and present-day activity of this system provide complementary constraints on how plate boundaries initiate, evolve, interact, merge and disappear, and on the processes controlling their localization and reorganization.
Increasingly refined geological, geochemical, geochronological, geophysical and geodetic observations constrain this evolution from Mesozoic plate configurations to present-day fault kinematics and deformation. Geochronological, geochemical and isotopic records provide temporal and petrogenetic constraints on magmatism, metamorphism, deformation, crust–mantle interactions and changes in geodynamic regime through time. Together, these observations reveal interactions between crustal deformation, inherited structures, subduction dynamics, mantle flow and magmatism, providing an opportunity to investigate how these processes interact across crustal and mantle depths and how past evolution influences present-day deformation.
We welcome contributions addressing the structure, kinematics, dynamics and evolution of the Caribbean tectonic system, including plate reconstructions and boundary reorganization, active faulting and deformation partitioning, subduction and back-arc processes, mantle dynamics, seismicity, magmatism and arc evolution, fluid-rock interactions, and vertical motions. We encourage contributions integrating geological, geochemical, geochronological, geophysical, geodetic and modelling approaches, particularly those using the Caribbean to address broader questions about the dynamics and evolution of plate boundaries and supra-subduction systems.

The Caribbean supra-subduction system has undergone continuous evolution and repeated reorganizations since the Late Mesozoic, while remaining intensely active today. Subduction, arc and back-arc dynamics interact with major strike-slip systems, collision zones and distributed deformation, together shaping a broad, complex and evolving plate-boundary region. The geological record and present-day activity of this system provide complementary constraints on how plate boundaries initiate, evolve, interact, merge and disappear, and on the processes controlling their localization and reorganization.
Increasingly refined geological, geochemical, geochronological, geophysical and geodetic observations constrain this evolution from Mesozoic plate configurations to present-day fault kinematics and deformation. Geochronological, geochemical and isotopic records provide temporal and petrogenetic constraints on magmatism, metamorphism, deformation, crust–mantle interactions and changes in geodynamic regime through time. Together, these observations reveal interactions between crustal deformation, inherited structures, subduction dynamics, mantle flow and magmatism, providing an opportunity to investigate how these processes interact across crustal and mantle depths and how past evolution influences present-day deformation.
We welcome contributions addressing the structure, kinematics, dynamics and evolution of the Caribbean tectonic system, including plate reconstructions and boundary reorganization, active faulting and deformation partitioning, subduction and back-arc processes, mantle dynamics, seismicity, magmatism and arc evolution, fluid-rock interactions, and vertical motions. We encourage contributions integrating geological, geochemical, geochronological, geophysical, geodetic and modelling approaches, particularly those using the Caribbean to address broader questions about the dynamics and evolution of plate boundaries and supra-subduction systems.

The geodynamics of Southeast Asia presents a wide range of processes operating both at Earth’s surface and Earth’s deep interior, which together have shaped the evolution of our planet since the onset of plate tectonics. These processes include continental rifting and marginal basin rifting, long- to short-lived oceanic subduction, arc- and plume-related magmatism, collisional orogeny, and arc accretion. Many of these processes are ongoing today or were active during the Cenozoic, providing opportunities for detailed study. Main unknowns on the geodynamics of SE Asia include questions on the reconstruction of the proto-South China Sea plate, paleo-Pacific subduction, and proto-Philippines Sea plate as well as the connection with the Tethyan realm to the south, the collision of Australian-derived fragments in eastern Indonesia and associated extension processes. To address these issues, we invite contributions from across the Earth sciences, including field-based geology, geochronology, geochemistry of detrital minerals and magmas, seismology, geodynamic and thermo-mechanical modeling, and plate kinematic and tectonic reconstructions.

Many regions of the Earth, from crust to core, exhibit anisotropic fabrics which can reveal much about geodynamic processes in the subsurface. These fabrics can exist at a variety of scales, from crystallographic orientations to regional structure alignments. In the past few decades, a tremendous body of multidisciplinary research has been dedicated to characterizing anisotropy in the solid Earth and understanding its geodynamical implications. This has included work in fields such as: (1) geophysics, to make in situ observations and construct models of anisotropic properties at a range of depths; (2) mineral physics, to explain the cause of some of these observations; and (3) numerical modelling, to relate the inferred fabrics to regional stress and flow regimes and, thus, geodynamic processes in the Earth. The study of anisotropy in the Solid Earth encompasses topics so diverse that it often appears fragmented according to regions of interest, e.g., the upper or lower crust, oceanic lithosphere, continental lithosphere, cratons, subduction zones, D'', or the inner core. The aim of this session is to bring together scientists working on different aspects of mechanical anisotropy to provide a comprehensive overview of the field. We encourage contributions from all disciplines of the earth sciences (including mineral physics, seismology, magnetotellurics, geodynamic modelling) focused on mechanical anisotropy at all scales and depths within the Earth.

Many regions of the Earth, from crust to core, exhibit anisotropic fabrics which can reveal much about geodynamic processes in the subsurface. These fabrics can exist at a variety of scales, from crystallographic orientations to regional structure alignments. In the past few decades, a tremendous body of multidisciplinary research has been dedicated to characterizing anisotropy in the solid Earth and understanding its geodynamical implications. This has included work in fields such as: (1) geophysics, to make in situ observations and construct models of anisotropic properties at a range of depths; (2) mineral physics, to explain the cause of some of these observations; and (3) numerical modelling, to relate the inferred fabrics to regional stress and flow regimes and, thus, geodynamic processes in the Earth. The study of anisotropy in the Solid Earth encompasses topics so diverse that it often appears fragmented according to regions of interest, e.g., the upper or lower crust, oceanic lithosphere, continental lithosphere, cratons, subduction zones, D'', or the inner core. The aim of this session is to bring together scientists working on different aspects of mechanical anisotropy to provide a comprehensive overview of the field. We encourage contributions from all disciplines of the earth sciences (including mineral physics, seismology, magnetotellurics, geodynamic modelling) focused on mechanical anisotropy at all scales and depths within the Earth.

AI is rapidly transforming research in deep Earth geodynamics, shaping research strategy, driving new research pathways, and promoting new research directions. This session invites AI-driven contributions and Machine Learning applications from geodynamics and related disciplines focusing on the structure and evolution of the Earth's crust and upper mantle.

AI is rapidly transforming research in deep Earth geodynamics, shaping research strategy, driving new research pathways, and promoting new research directions. This session invites AI-driven contributions and Machine Learning applications from geodynamics and related disciplines focusing on the structure and evolution of the Earth's crust and upper mantle.

In recent years, technologies based on Artificial Intelligence (AI), such as image processing, smart sensors, and intelligent inversion, have garnered significant attention from researchers in the geosciences community. These technologies offer the promise of transitioning geosciences from qualitative to quantitative analysis, unlocking new insights and capabilities previously thought unattainable.
One of the key reasons for the growing popularity of AI in geosciences is its unparalleled ability to efficiently analyze vast datasets within remarkably short timeframes. This capability empowers scientists and researchers to tackle some of the most intricate and challenging issues in fields like Geophysics, Seismology, Hydrology, Planetary Science, Remote Sensing, and Disaster Risk Reduction.
As we stand on the cusp of a new era in geosciences, the integration of artificial intelligence promises to deliver more accurate estimations, efficient predictions, and innovative solutions. By leveraging algorithms and machine learning, AI empowers geoscientists to uncover intricate patterns and relationships within complex data sources, ultimately advancing our understanding of the Earth's dynamic systems. In essence, artificial intelligence has become an indispensable tool in the pursuit of quantitative precision and deeper insights in the fascinating world of geosciences.
For this reason, aim of this session is to explore new advances and approaches of AI in Geosciences.

The dynamics of magmatic systems are driven by complex processes that span from deep mantle melt generation to volcanic eruptions at the surface. These processes include: melt generation in the upper mantle and lower crust, magma transport, differentiation and emplacement in the crust, complex melt-rock interactions, genesis of energy and mineral resources, and volcanic extrusions with related hazards. Such fluid-mechanical and thermo-chemical processes operate across sub-millimetre to kilometre scales and timescales ranging from seconds to millions of years , and involve multiple phases, such as liquid melt, solid crystals, volatile and metal-bearing fluids, and pyroclasts. Understanding these processes requires a multidisciplinary approach, combining observations, experiments, and computational methods including forward and inverse modelling and machine learning.

Despite the crucial role of computational methods in integrating and interpreting data from various sources, there has been limited development of a dedicated community across volcanic, petrology, and magmatic studies. For the fourth consecutive year, this session aims to address this gap by focusing on computational approaches to understanding volcanic and magmatic systems. We seek to bring together researchers working on forward and inverse modelling, machine learning, and other computational methods to foster a thriving and collaborative community that complements well-established observational and experimental lines of work.

We encourage contributions that explore the theory, development, application, and validation of computational approaches for integrating and interpreting experimental and observational data to improve our understanding of volcanic and magmatic processes. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

- Multiphase flow dynamics
- Thermodynamics and phase equilibria
- Magma transport and storage
- Chemical and rheological melt-rock interactions
- Crystallization, immiscibility, and degassing processes
- Energy and mineral resource genesis
- Magma-hydrothermal interactions
- Eruption dynamics and hazards

This session aims to provide a platform for in-depth technical discussions that are challenging to facilitate in broader multidisciplinary sessions, ultimately fostering a stronger computational community within volcanic and magmatic studies.

Sitting under a tree, you feel the spark of an idea, and suddenly everything falls into place. The following days and tests confirm: you have made a magnificent discovery — so the classical story of scientific genius goes…

But science as a human activity is error-prone, and might be more adequately described as "trial and error". Handling mistakes and setbacks is therefore a key skill of scientists. Yet, we publish only those parts of our research that did work. That is also because a study may have better chances to be accepted for scientific publication if it confirms an accepted theory or reaches a positive result (publication bias). Conversely, the cases that fail in their test of a new method or idea often end up in a drawer (which is why publication bias is also sometimes called the "file drawer effect"). This is potentially a waste of time and resources within our community, as other scientists may set about testing the same idea or model setup without being aware of previous failed attempts.

Thus, we want to turn the story around, and ask you to share 1) those ideas that seemed magnificent but turned out not to be, and 2) the errors, bugs, and mistakes in your work that made the scientific road bumpy. In the spirit of open science and in an interdisciplinary setting, we want to bring the BUGS out of the drawers and into the spotlight. What ideas were torn down or did not work, and what concepts survived in the ashes or were robust despite errors?

We explicitly solicit Blunders, Unexpected Glitches, and Surprises (BUGS) from modeling and field or lab experiments and from all disciplines of the Geosciences.

In a friendly atmosphere, we will learn from each other’s mistakes, understand the impact of errors and abandoned paths on our work, give each other ideas for shared problems, and generate new insights for our science or scientific practice.

Here are some ideas for contributions that we would love to see:
- Ideas that sounded good at first, but turned out to not work.
- Results that presented themselves as great in the first place but turned out to be caused by a bug or measurement error.
- Errors and slip-ups that resulted in insights.
- Failed experiments and negative results.
- Obstacles and dead ends you found and would like to warn others about.

For inspiration, see the collection of BUGS - ranging from clay bricks to atmospheric temperature extremes - at https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU25/session/52496