Session 1. (Sunday evening)
Topic: Mapping Earth's Interior
- Images of slabs and implications for layered vs. whole mantle convection.
- Images of midocean ridges.
- Comparison of models.
- How good are the models?
- Are seismic anomalies thermal or compositional in origin?
- Is there seismic evidence for mantle avalanches?
- Are there deep low velocity sheets beneath midocean ridges?
- Is there a tectosphere?
- Discussion Leader: Thomas Jordan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Stephen Grand, University of Texas, Austin
- Adam Dziewonski, Harvard University
Session 2. (Monday morning)
Topic: The Fate of Slabs
- What is the nature of the transition zone?
- Is it a sequence of isochemical phase changes or are there chemical compositional variations as well?
- Images of slabs interacting with the transition zone.
- Other seismic evidence for slab penetration below 660 km depth.
- Are there slabs resting on the CMB?
- What influences the ability of slabs to penetrate the 660 km phase change?
- Discussion Leader: Kenneth Creager, University of Washington, Seattle
- Rob van der Hilst, Australian National University
- Eiichi Takahashi, Tokyo Institute of Technology
- Carolina Litgow-Bertelloni, Carnegie Institute of Washington
Session 3. (Monday evening)
Topic: Posters and Videos
Posters will stay up Monday and Tuesday.
- Discussion Leader and Summarizer: David Stevenson, California Institute of Technology
Session 4. (Tuesday morning)
Topic: Patterns of Mantle Convection
- What is the nature of mantle convection according to theoretical models and
how well do these models satisfy observational constraints?
- What are the important properties/characteristics of the mantle that
influence convection?
- How does the viscosity law used in theoretical models affect the flow
pattern obtained and how well do we know the viscosity structure of the
mantle?
- Discussion Leader: Louise Kellogg, University of California, Davis
- Jason Phipps Morgan, University of California, San Diego
- Paul Tackley, University of California, Los Angeles
- Ian Jackson, Australian National University
Session 5. (Tuesday evening)
Topic: Geochemical Reservoirs and Mantle Mixing
- Are there chemical reservoirs in the mantle?
- How many are there and where are they located?
- Are isotopic data consistent with whole mantle convection?
- What is the geochemists' model of mantle convection?
- What else can modellers do to more meaningfully incorporate geochemical constraints?
- Can we infer mixing times and residence times from isotopic data?
- Discussion Leader: Don Anderson, California Institute of Technology
- Richard Carlson, Carnegie Institute
- Ulrich Christensen, Universitaet Goettingen
Session 6. (Wednesday morning)
Topic: Plates and Mantle Convection
- How are plates generated from mantle convection?
- How does the presence of plates affect flow through the entire mantle?
- How well do present mantle convection models account for plate behavior?
- What do plate velocities and stress patterns imply about the coupling between plates and the underlying mantle?
- What is the significance of sealevel variations for mantle dynamics?
- What is seismic anisotropy telling us about mantle flow?
- Discussion Leader: David Bercovici, University of Hawaii, Manoa
- Michael Gurnis, California Institute of Technology
- Shun Karato, University of Minnesota
- Yanick Ricard, Ecole Normale Superieure
Session 7. (Wednesday evening)
Topic: Posters and Videos
Posters will stay up Wednesday and Thursday
- Discussion Leader and Summarizer: Barbara Romanowicz, University of California, Berkeley
Session 8. (Thursday morning)
Topic: Dynamics of the Core
- What is in the core?
- What is the nature of core dynamics and magnetic field generation?
- What is the relative importance of thermal and compositional buoyancy (as a function of depth) in the outer core?
- Could a stably stratified layer in the outer core be observed (geomagnetically, seismically, gravitationally)?
- Is the inner core important in the dynamo process?
- What is the significance of seismic anisotropy in the inner core?
- What do paleomagnetic data tell us about processes in the core?
- What is the nature of D" and the coupling at the CMB and how important is it for core and mantle dynamics?
- Discussion Leader: David Loper, Florida State University
- David Gubbins, Leeds University
- Guy Masters, University of California, San Diego
- Peter Olson, Johns Hopkins University
Session 9. (Thursday evening)
Topic: Unresolved Problems
- Business of Future Conferences.
- Is there a model of mantle/core convection that satisfies all the constraints?
- Most of them?
- Some of them?
- Are constraints from different disciplines, e.g., seismology and geochemistry, difficult to reconcile?
- Breakthroughs in high performance computing, visualization.
- Breakthroughs in laboratory measurements.
- Plans for new observations.
- What new data are needed?
- Discussion Leader: Richard O'Connell, Harvard University
- Donald Turcotte, Cornell University
- Raymond Jeanloz, University of California, Berkeley
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