Session V details: Rheology

Conveners: Georg Dresen (GFZ/U Potsdam), Hiroki Sone (GFZ)
Keynote Speakers:

• Yuri Fialko (U California): Numerical models of ductile roots of mature strike-slip faults
• Laurent Montési (U Maryland): Localization processes on Earth, Mars, and Venus

Rheology of the Lithosphere – What’s new and where is this going? Localized and episodic deformation in the upper crust is intimately coupled to viscous flow of deeper layers of the upper lithosphere. The nature of this coupling in actively deforming regions such as mountain belts and large plate-bounding fault zones is complex and involving a broad range of governing physical processes potentially varying in space and time. In this session we wish to address open questions related to the rheology of crustal and upper mantle rocks and in particular span a bridge between constraints provided by laboratory and field studies to numerical modelling approaches of ductile deformation processes over a range of spatial and temporal scales.