PHYS 2601 Topics in Planetary Physics (a reading course)
Professor: Mark Jellinek (markj@physics.utoronto.ca , MP 516B)
Meeting times: Th (9-11 MP 503)
Text: Geodynamics by Turcotte and Schubert.
A brief Overview
This course is designed to provide an overview of how geophyiscal observations such as topography, gravity and magnetics are analyzed and applied to construct understanding of how terrestrial planets work. To do this we will work through much of Turcotte and Schubert's book "Geodynamics" as well as the appropriate current literature. This is a reading course. Each student will become "an expert" on one topic and give two 2 hour lectures (those auditing will give one lecture). There will be weekly problem sets that will anticipate each lecture. Problem sets are due at the start of each class and are to be self-graded with comments. Students in the class will do a final project that includes a report and a 20-25 minute talk. Details on the project will follow.
Course Outline (so far)
Week 1. Amy will talk about bending of elastic plates and her work on dynamic topography.
Reading: T&S chapters 1-3
Problems: T&S 2-6, 3-1, 3-5, 3-18. Solutions outside my door.
Weeks 2 & 3. Catherine R will about gravity and the geoid as well as various observations of Venus.
Reading: T&S chapter 5. Some additional reading will be available on spherical harmonics and admittance. Guys, this is a hard couple of weeks.
Additional reading:
Gravity / topography transfer functions
Problems: T&S 5-13. Additional problems,transfer fucntion, Zuber paper.
Weeks 4 & 5. Vid will talk about heat flow through continents and oceans. A possible additional topic are likely hemispheric variations of heat flow on Mars.
Reading: T&S chapter 4.
Problems: T&S 4-10, 4-18, 4-23, 4-24, 4-28, 4-32, 4-62 (see Anderson and Heaton, 1998, Science, 279, 839-842 for some discussion of frictional melting during earthquakes).
Weeks 6. Roblyn will talk about using post-glacial rebound to constrain sea level and mantle viscosity models.
Reading: T&S chapter 4; Turcotte et al. Ch. 5; Lambeck and Johnston, "The viscosity of the mantle: Evidence from analyses of glacial-rebound phenomena", Chapter 10 in The Earth's Mantle, Jackson (ed), 1998.
Weeks 7 & 8. Uwe will talk about the rheology of rocks and models for mantle and lithospheric flow/deformation. Reading: T&S Chapter 7
Problems: T&S problem 7-15 .
Braun et al., A simple parameterization of strain localization in the ductile regime due to grain size reduction: A case study for olivine, JGR, 104, 25167-25181, 1999.
Weeks 9 & 10. Mark will introduce some additional topics in fluid dynamics. Probably also talk about hotspots.
Reading: T&S Chapter 6 and some additional stuff.
Problems: .