The facies changes, tectonics and magmatism across the Triassic–Jurassic boundary in the southern Tethyan margin have been studied in Egypt, Sudan, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. In Saudi Arabia and Jordan an unconformable contact is recognized between the Upper Triassic and Lower Jurassic rocks. This unconformity surface is marked by the truncation of the fluvial clastics of the uppermost Triassic b...

[1] The net influx of water into the deep mantle by plate tectonics has been poorly constrained because it is difficult to quantify how efficiently subducting slabs are devolatilized on a global scale. The significance of deep water cycle in the Earth history is similarly ambiguous because it depends critically on when plate tectonics started and how it evolved through time. Here I show that, u...

We use 1-D thermal history models and 3-D numerical experiments to study the impact of dynamic thermal disequilibrium and large temporal variations of normal and shear stresses on the initiation of plate tectonics. Previous models that explored plate tectonics initiation from a steady state, single plate mode of convection concluded that normal stresses govern the initiation of plate tectonics,...

We present a series of 2D thermo-mechanical numerical experiments thick-skinned crustal extension including pre-rift salt horizon and subsequent thin-, thick-skinned, or mixed styles convergence accompanied by surface processes. Extension localization along steep basement faults produces half-graben structures leads to variations in the original distribution salt. Thick-skinned rate rheology co...

Lateral escape tectonics mediated by strike-slip fault zones are an efficient mechanism of rock deformation in the continental crust collision zones. The Borborema shear zone system, which shows dimensions comparable to Cenozoic extrusion Indochina, defines a lateral setting Brasilano orogeny Northeastern Brazil. In this paper, timing high-grade metamorphism and compositions terranes involved w...

The realization that Earth may have lost heat more slowly in the past than at present has motivated the search for mechanisms to reduce the efficiency of plate tectonics in the past. Several mechanisms have been proposed, such as the resistance to subduction of thick plates (1) produced by deeper melting at higher mantle temperatures (2). We (3) proposed an alternative mechanism, namely subduct...