Solving an Earth-Sized Jigsaw Puzzle

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday September 1, 2010 @08:56PM from the get-the-edges-first dept.

aarondubrow writes "Three years ago, researchers from Caltech and The University of Texas at Austin came together to create a computational tool that could model the Earth and answer the most pressing questions in geophysics: What controls the speed of plates? How do microplates interact? How much energy do the plates generate and how does it dissipate? Using a new geodynamics software package they developed, the researchers have modeled plate motion with greater accuracy than ever before. The project is also a finalist for the Gordon Bell Prize — high performance computing's Oscar — at this year's SC10 conference."

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Re:how is this measured? by palndrumm · 2010-09-01 21:24 · Score: 5, Informative

You can measure plate motions with GPS, if you're patient. Most of the deep structure is worked out using seismic imaging.
Re:how is this measured? by terremoto · 2010-09-01 21:35 · Score: 5, Informative

Anyone know how the measure this stuff?
Short term (human lifetime) by using GPS, VLBI and measurements of seismic activity.
Long term (earth lifetime) by using magnetic stripe lineations on the seafloor, hot-spot tracks (eg, the Hawaiian volcano chain) and other geologic indicators.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_reconstruction