Lecture: Frayed at the Edges: The Mesozoic Pacific Margin of Gondwana
Speaker:
Entry Fee
Members: Free
Visitors: £5.00
Date and Time
19:30 -
Location
Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution, 16-18 Queen Square, Bath BA1 2HN
Lecture Description
Despite its critical importance for palaeoclimatic reconstructions, the Mesozoic latitude of Gondwana is poorly known between 175 and 110 Ma. New data suggest that this was a time of major tectonic mobility on the Gondwana margin with potential movements of several thousand kilometres away from the pole, of rocks that now hold key environmental and latitude information. These rocks are used to infer Gondwana history prior to Cenozoic glaciation, but without knowing where the rocks were, inferences based on them have no certainty. Mesozoic suspect terranes in West Antarctica may, like some of their northern hemisphere counterparts, have travelled hundreds or even thousands of km before arriving at the Palaeo-Pacific margins. There are three main possibilities and the talk will present a consideration of the evidence used to test these three hypotheses using a variety of geological and geochemical techniques.