Some mechanics studies of earth faults and ice sheets
James Rice (Harvard)
SES 50 Anniversary Plenary Lecture
Mon 1:30:00 PM
Salomon 101
Concepts of solid and fluid mechanics, integrated with materials and thermal sciences, are as applicable to large-scale natural phenomena as to typical engineering analyses. The lecture reviews some of their recent applications to the following: (1) Ice sheet flow and subglacial hydrology, especially focusing on rapid underfooding events, and on the possibility that gradual internal melting from shear heating controls ice stream marginal locations, and (2) Physics of fault zones in seismic slip, particularly thermal processes of dynamic fault weakening and their consequences for earthquake rupture propagation.