This chapter reviews the present-day composition of the continental crust, the methods employed to derive these estimates, and the implications of the continental crust composition for the formation of the continents, Earth differentiation, and its geochemical inventories. We review the composition of the upper, middle, and lower continental crust. We then examine the bulk crust composition and the implications of this composition for crust generation and modification processes. Finally, we compare the Earth's crust with those of the other terrestrial planets in our solar system and speculate about what unique processes on Earth have given rise to this unusual crustal distribution.

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Composition of the Continental Crust

Changes in Atmospheric Constituents and in Radiative Forcing

This essential reference for graduate students and researchers provides a unified treatment of earthquakes and faulting as two aspects of brittle tectonics at different timescales. The intimate connection between the two is manifested in their scaling laws and populations, which evolve from fracture growth and interactions between fractures. The connection between faults and the seismicity generated is governed by the rate and state dependent friction laws - producing distinctive seismic styles of faulting and a gamut of earthquake phenomena including aftershocks, afterslip, earthquake triggering, and slow slip events. The third edition of this classic treatise presents a wealth of new topics and new observations. These include slow earthquake phenomena; friction of phyllosilicates, and at high sliding velocities; fault structures; relative roles of strong and seismogenic versus weak and creeping faults; dynamic triggering of earthquakes; oceanic earthquakes; megathrust earthquakes in subduction zones; deep earthquakes; and new observations of earthquake precursory phenomena.

The Mechanics of Earthquakes and Faulting

This chapter should be cited as: Myhre, G., D. Shindell, F.-M. Bréon, W. Collins, J. Fuglestvedt, J. Huang, D. Koch, J.-F. Lamarque, D. Lee, B. Mendoza, T. Nakajima, A. Robock, G. Stephens, T. Takemura and H. Zhang, 2013: Anthropogenic and Natural Radiative Forcing. In: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Stocker, T.F., D. Qin, G.-K. Plattner, M. Tignor, S.K. Allen, J. Boschung, A. Nauels, Y. Xia, V. Bex and P.M. Midgley (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA. Coordinating Lead Authors: Gunnar Myhre (Norway), Drew Shindell (USA)

Anthropogenic and Natural Radiative Forcing

A global plate motion model, named NUVEL-1, which describes current plate motions between 12 rigid plates is described, with special attention given to the method, data, and assumptions used Tectonic implications of the patterns that emerged from the results are discussed It is shown that wide plate boundary zones can form not only within the continental lithosphere but also within the oceanic lithosphere; eg, between the Indian and Australian plates and between the North American and South American plates Results of the model also suggest small but significant diffuse deformation of the oceanic lithosphere, which may be confined to small awkwardly shaped salients of major plates

Current plate motions

Thomas R. Watters, Sean C. Solomon, Mark S. Robinson, Louise M. Prockter, Robert G. Strom, James W. Head, Clark R. Chapman, Scott L. Murchie and the MESSENGER Team. Center for Earth and Planetary Studies, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 20560 (watterst@si.edu); Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, DC 20015; Department of Geological Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85251; Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD 20723; Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721; Department of Geological Sciences, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912; Southwest Research Institute, 1050 Walnut St., Suite 300, Boulder, CO 80302.

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The tectonics of mercury: a new view from messenger .

(1) Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 5241 Broad Branch Road, N.W., Washington, DC 20015, USA, (2) Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD 20723, USA, (3) Computer Sciences Corporation, Lanham-Seabrook, MD 20706, USA, (4) Department of Geological Sciences, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA, (5) Academy of Athens, Athens 11527, Greece, (6) Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, CO 80302, USA, (7) Heliophysics Science Division, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA, (8) Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02129, USA.

The Return to Mercury: An Overview of MESSENGER's First Mercury Flyby

FLYBY OBSERVATIONS AND GEOPHYSICAL MODELING. Maria T. Zuber, David E. Smith, Roger J. Phillips, Sean C. Solomon, Gregory A. Neumann, Frank G. Lemoine, Stanton J. Peale, Jean-Luc Margot, Steven A. Hauck, II, James W. Head, Catherine L. Johnson, Michael E. Purucker, Jurgen Oberst10, Grant T. Farmer, Jiangning Lu, Youshun Sun, M. Nafi Toksoz, Olivier S. Barnouin, Mark E. Perry, Dipak K. Srinivasan, Mark H. Torrence, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02129 (zuber@mit.edu); Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, CO 80302; Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, DC 20015; NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771; University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106; University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095; Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106; Brown University, Providence, RI 02912; University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z4; DLR, Berlin, Germany; Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD 20723; SGT, Inc., 7701 Greenbelt Rd., Greenbelt, MD 20770.

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Emerging Perspectives on Mercury's Internal Structure from MESSENGER Flyby Observations and Geophysical Modeling

MESSENGER: The Rediscovery of Mercury

Knowledge of the thermal structure of a planet is vital to a thorough understanding of its general scheme of tectonics. Since no direct measurements of heat flow or thermal gradient are available for Venus, most estimates have been derived from theoretical considerations or by analog with the Earth. The flexural response of the lithosphere to applied loads is sensitive to regional thermal structure. Under the assumption that the yield strength as a function of depth can be specified, the temperature gradient can be inferred from the effective elastic plate thickness. Previous estimates of the effective elastic plate thickness of Venus range from 11-18 km for the foredeep north of Uorsar Rupes to 30-60 km for the annular troughs around several coronae. Thermal gradients inferred for these regions are 14-23 K km(exp -1) and 4-9 K km(exp -1) respectively. In this study, we apply the same techniques to investigate the uplifted flanks of an extensional rift. Hypotheses for the origin of uplifted rift flanks on Earth include lateral transport of heat from the center of the rift, vertical transport of heat by small-scale convection, differential thinning of the lithosphere, dynamical uplift, and isostatic response to mechanical uploading of the lithosphere. The 1st hypothesis is considered the dominant contributor to terrestrial rift flanks lacking evidence for volcanic activity, particularly for rift structures that are no longer active. In this study, we model the uplifted flanks of a venusian rift as the flexural response to a vertical end load.

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Sean C. Solomon

Papers

The tectonics of mercury: a new view from messenger .

The Return to Mercury: An Overview of MESSENGER's First Mercury Flyby

Emerging Perspectives on Mercury's Internal Structure from MESSENGER Flyby Observations and Geophysical Modeling

MESSENGER: The Rediscovery of Mercury

Flexural analysis of uplifted rift flanks on Venus