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

The linear mountain belts of Ishtar Terra on Venus are notable for their topographic relief and slope and for the intensity of surface deformation The mountains surround the highland plain Lakshmi Planum, the site of two major paterae and numerous other volcanic features and deposits, and evidence is widespread for volcanism within the mountains and in terrain immediately outward of the mountain belt units While two hypotheses for magmatism can be distinguished on the basis of the chemistry of the melts, chemical data are presently lacking for the Ishtar region The competing hypotheses for magmatism in Western Ishtar Terra can also be tested with thermal models, given a kinematic or dynamic model for the evolution of the region The crustal remelting hypothesis is assessed, using the kinematic scenario of Head for the evolution of Freyja Montes In that scenario, Freyja Montes formed by a sequence of large scale underthrusts of the lithosphere of the North Polar Plains beneath Ishtar Terra, with successive blocks of underthrust crust sutured in imbricate fashion onto the thickened crust of Lakshmi Planum and the mantle portion of underthrusting lithosphere episodically detached The numerical experiments thus show that volcanic activity associated with the formation of the Frejya Montes deformation zone can be explained by crustal melting, due either to direct contact of crustal material with the hot asthenosphere or to heat generation in a thickened crustal layer

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An assessment of the crustal remelting hypothesis for volcanism in the Freyja Montes deformation zone

S-wave tomographic imaging of the mantle beneath the Hawaiian Islands from the PLUME deployments of ocean-bottom and land seismometers

Louise M. Prockter, Scott L. Murchie, Mark S. Robinson, Nori R. Laslo, Hong K. Kang, S. Edward Hawkins, III, Ann P. Harch, Robin M. Vaughan, David T. Blewett, James W. Head, Sean C. Solomon, and the MESSENGER Team. Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD, 20723, Louise.Prockter@jhuapl.edu; Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ; Cornell University, Ithaca, NY; Brown University, Providence, RI; Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington DC.

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MESSENGER Imaging of Regions of Mercury Not Seen by Mariner 10

Global Distribution and Spectral Properties of Low-Reflectance Material on Mercury

GRAVITY RECOVERY AND INTERIOR LABORATORY (GRAIL). Maria T. Zuber, David E. Smith, Sander J. Goossens,Sami W. Asmar, Alexander S. Konopliv, Frank G. Lemoine, H. Jay Melosh, Gregory A. Neumann, Roger J. Phillips, Sean C. Solomon, Michael M. Watkins, Mark A. Wieczorek, Jeffrey C. Andrews-Hanna, James W. Head, Walter S. Kiefer, Patrick J. McGovern, Francis Nimmo, G. Jeffrey Taylor, Jonathan Besserer, Brandon C. Johnson, Katarina Miljković, Jason M. Soderblom, David M. Blair, Gerhard L. Kruizinga, Erwan Mazarico, Dah-Ning Yuan. Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02129, USA (zuber@mit.edu); University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD 21250, USA. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109-8099, USA; NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA; Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA; Planetary Science Directorate, Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, CO 80302, USA; Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, NY 10964, USA; Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, DC 20015, USA; Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, 94100 Saint Maur des Fossés, France; Department of Geophysics and Center for Space Resources, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 80401, USA; Department of Geological Sciences, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA; Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, TX 77058, USA; Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA; Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA;

Sean C. Solomon

Papers

An assessment of the crustal remelting hypothesis for volcanism in the Freyja Montes deformation zone

S-wave tomographic imaging of the mantle beneath the Hawaiian Islands from the PLUME deployments of ocean-bottom and land seismometers

MESSENGER Imaging of Regions of Mercury Not Seen by Mariner 10

Global Distribution and Spectral Properties of Low-Reflectance Material on Mercury

A High-Resolution View of the Orientale Basin and Surroundings from the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL)