Mr Jack Muston

Research: 4D Reconstruction of the Carpathians

A significant unresolved issue in tectonics is the origin of curved mountain belts, or oroclines. The Carpathians is one such example. This project aims to reconstruct the tectonic history of the Carpathians mountain belt using 4D (3D + time) reconstruction software, Pplates. Debate centres on a range of models, but unquestionably the slab roll-back hypothesis is gaining the upper hand. As shown for the ALCAPA zone, palaeomagnetism provides critical data as to vertical axis rotations and timing. But rigid-rotations as proposed by van Hinsbergen et al. (2008) would cause patterns of deformation that are not observed. In order to advance we need to eliminate such impossible strain fields. We can do this using deformable and tearable mesh based reconstruction software, such as Pplates, and select motion patterns consistent with this data.