Marie and Claire at SEDI 2014 @ Shonan Village Center in Japan

Marie Bocher and Claire Mallard attended the 14th Symposium of SEDI, held in Japan from the 3 to 8 august. They presented their work in the poster session « Mantle-modelling and dynamics ».
Marie’s poster presents a new approach of sequential data assimilation for the joint reconstruction of mantle convection and surface tectonics, which consists in combining surface velocities and heat fluxes evolution with a mantle convection model to reconstruct the tectonic and interior evolution of the mantle. This method proved to be efficient in recovering both temperature and velocity fields of convection evolution, including the position and geometry of slabs and plumes in the lower mantle.

Claire’s poster introduced a new methodology to interpret and apply the tectonic theory on the surface of the mantle convection models and shows the preliminary results of its application. It shows that the plate tectonics theory can be applied to convection models with plate-like behaviour and that the plate topology in this case is comparable to that of the Earth.
Marie and Claire benefited from discussions about their work and had the opportunity to interact with colleagues. They came out of this conference more experienced and with some new ideas. It was their first international workshop. Marie and Claire acknowledge Gauthier Hulot (IPG Paris) and the travel support provided by CNRS/INSU.