Reconstructing plate-motion changes in the presence of finite-rotations noise

Iaffaldano, Giampiero; Bodin, Thomas; Sambridge, Malcolm

doi:10.1038/ncomms2051

Cited by 52 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Recently, Iaffaldano et al . [] showed this to be a useful step to infer reliable plate kinematics. Second, we combine those kinematics with the ones derived from earlier reconstructions of the paleodistance between Arabia and Nubia, to obtain the Nubia/Somalia past motions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bayesian noise-reduction in Arabia/Somalia and Nubia/Arabia finite rotations since ∼20 Ma: Implications for Nubia/Somalia relative motion

Iaffaldano

Hawkins

Sambridge

2014

Geochem. Geophys. Geosyst.

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Knowledge of Nubia/Somalia relative motion since the Early Neogene is of particular importance in the Earth Sciences, because it (i) impacts on inferences on African dynamic topography; and (ii) allows us to link plate kinematics within the Indian realm with those within the Atlantic basin. The contemporary Nubia/Somalia motion is well known from geodetic observations. Precise estimates of the past-3.2-Myr average motion are also available from paleo-magnetic observations. However, little is known of the Nubia/Somalia motion prior to $3.2 Ma, chiefly because the Southwest Indian Ridge spread slowly, posing a challenge to precisely identify magnetic lineations. This also makes the few observations available particularly prone to noise. Here we reconstruct Nubia/Somalia relative motions since $20 Ma from the alternative plate-circuit Nubia-Arabia-Somalia. We resort to trans-dimensional hierarchical Bayesian Inference, which has proved effective in reducing finite-rotation noise, to unravel the Arabia/Somalia and Arabia/Nubia motions. We combine the resulting kinematics to reconstruct the Nubia/Somalia relative motion since $20 Ma. We verify the validity of the approach by comparing our reconstruction with the available record for the past $3.2 Myr, obtained through Antarctica. Results indicate that prior to $11 Ma the total motion between Nubia and Somalia was faster than today. Furthermore, it featured a significant strike-slip component along the Nubia/Somalia boundary. It is only since $11 Ma that Nubia diverges away from Somalia at slower rates, comparable to the present-day one. Kinematic changes of some 20% might have occurred in the period leading to the present-day, but plate-motion steadiness is also warranted within the uncertainties.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bayesian noise-reduction in Arabia/Somalia and Nubia/Arabia finite rotations since ∼20 Ma: Implications for Nubia/Somalia relative motion

Iaffaldano

Hawkins

Sambridge

2014

Geochem. Geophys. Geosyst.

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“…Malinverno 2002;Sambridge et al 2006;Hopcroft et al 2009;Dettmer et al 2010;Piana Agostinetti & Malinverno 2010;Gallagher et al 2011;Bodin et al 2012a,b;Iaffaldano et al 2012). TB inversion of RFs is a fully non-linear inversion approach cast in a Bayesian (i.e.…”

Section: Transdimensional Bayesian (Tb) Inversion Of Receiver Functionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Crustal and uppermost mantle structure variation beneath La Réunion hotspot track

Fontaine¹,

Barruol²,

Tkalčić

et al. 2015

Geophys. J. Int.

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“…To our knowledge, this has not been done so far on a global scale. On a regional scale and for recent time (5 to 20 Myr), Iaffaldano et al (2012) applied the trans-dimensional hierarchical Bayesian method to reduce noise in finite rotation data and produce time series of high-resolution plate-relative motions. More recently, Iaffaldano and Bunge (2015) applied this technique to the relative motion of the pacific plate with North America for the last 75 Myr.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ensemble Kalman filter for the reconstruction of the Earth's mantle circulation

Bocher

Fournier

Coltice

2018

Nonlin. Processes Geophys.

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Abstract. Recent advances in mantle convection modeling led to the release of a new generation of convection codes, able to self-consistently generate plate-like tectonics at their surface. Those models physically link mantle dynamics to surface tectonics. Combined with plate tectonic reconstructions, they have the potential to produce a new generation of mantle circulation models that use data assimilation methods and where uncertainties in plate tectonic reconstructions are taken into account. We provided a proof of this concept by applying a suboptimal Kalman filter to the reconstruction of mantle circulation (Bocher et al., 2016). Here, we propose to go one step further and apply the ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) to this problem. The EnKF is a sequential Monte Carlo method particularly adapted to solve high-dimensional data assimilation problems with nonlinear dynamics. We tested the EnKF using synthetic observations consisting of surface velocity and heat flow measurements on a 2-D-spherical annulus model and compared it with the method developed previously. The EnKF performs on average better and is more stable than the former method. Less than 300 ensemble members are sufficient to reconstruct an evolution. We use covariance adaptive inflation and localization to correct for sampling errors. We show that the EnKF results are robust over a wide range of covariance localization parameters. The reconstruction is associated with an estimation of the error, and provides valuable information on where the reconstruction is to be trusted or not.

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Reconstructing plate-motion changes in the presence of finite-rotations noise

Cited by 52 publications

References 31 publications

Bayesian noise-reduction in Arabia/Somalia and Nubia/Arabia finite rotations since ∼20 Ma: Implications for Nubia/Somalia relative motion

Bayesian noise-reduction in Arabia/Somalia and Nubia/Arabia finite rotations since ∼20 Ma: Implications for Nubia/Somalia relative motion

Crustal and uppermost mantle structure variation beneath La Réunion hotspot track

Ensemble Kalman filter for the reconstruction of the Earth's mantle circulation

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