GOLD MEDAL LECTURE GIVEN at the ACADEMIA EUROPAEA BUILDING BRIDGES CONFERENCE 2022: Bottom-up Probing Earth System: A Journey in Deep Time and Space

Sierd Cloetingh

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

The quantitative understanding of processes operating in the earth system has advanced significantly over the last few decades. This has led to the realization that a close interaction between deep earth and surface processes is a key element in earth dynamics and its impact on geo-environment, geo-energy, geo-resources and geo-hazards in general. The European continent and its ocean-continent margins provide an excellent natural laboratory to examine the impact of geodynamics and climate on topography at the earth’s surface. The overview presented here demonstrates the need for a further understanding of the earth system across space and timescales. Cross-border scientific cooperation on a full pan-European scale, benefiting from funding opportunities offered by the European Commission and a pro-active role in bottom-up self-organization involving members of the Earth and Cosmic Sciences section of Academia Europaea, is needed more than ever.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)328-355
Number of pages28
JournalEuropean Review
Volume31
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Aug 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Academia Europaea Ltd.

Funding

The above provided the motivation to develop a pan-European large-scale collaborative research programme called TOPO-EUROPE. TOPO-EUROPE considered continental Europe and its adjacent ocean–continent margins and oceanic basins (such as the Mediterranean and northern Atlantic) as a natural laboratory to investigate the interaction between the processes operating deep in the earth, on the surface and also in the atmosphere (Cloetingh et al. ). Figure displays seismic tomographic cross-sections through a number of key areas in Europe, provided by Wim Spakman, to a depth of 800 km. The areas in the upper mantle in red are the zones where we have upwelling of hot upper mantle material and the areas in blue are the areas where we have subduction and down-thrusting of the lithosphere to greater depths. The first occurs, for example, below the Pannonian Basin of Hungary. The latter occurs, for example, below the Romanian Carpathians, below Crete, the Tyrrhenian Sea, and in the Gibraltar area. This is a striking illustration of heterogeneity in the earth’s mantle underlying the European continent with major consequences for its surface topography. According to the paradigm of plate tectonics, in its early phase, mountains in Europe are basically by-products of the interaction of tectonic plates in the Mediterranean, where Europe meets Africa. However, in Europe we have also substantial topography far away from the plate boundaries, as in southern Norway. Also fascinating is Iberia as a microcontinent with an average elevation higher than the average elevation of Switzerland. For a long time, the causal mechanisms for this intraplate topography have remained enigmatic. However, the earth science community now has the tools to reconstruct the evolving continental topography and to link it to processes operating at deeper levels. With the TOPO-EUROPE programme, developed with the support of the International Lithosphere Project, we received ca. €15 million funding for a large-scale European Collaborative Research Effort (EUROCORES) coordinated by the European Research Foundation (ESF) (Cloetingh and Willett ). In addition, a TOPO-EUROPE inspired programme on the topography of Iberia (Topo Iberia) obtained an additional €8 million from the Spanish National Research Council, CSIC. In the EUROCORES project with 23 participating European countries, we were able to employ 60 young researchers, forming a community that still exists. I am very pleased that among the members of the Young Academy of Europe, several young members have grown up in this community. Europe has a pronounced topography, a significant part of which is at first sight enigmatic, while Europe’s crust and lithosphere are not exactly rigid. In the early paradigm in plate tectonics, deformation was considered to be concentrated at the plate boundaries. From the distribution of earthquakes in Europe we see that this is evidently not the case (Figure ), and earthquakes occur far from the plate boundaries. In addition, we have a very rich spectrum of differential motions in Europe, where some areas are observed to go up, while other areas continue to go down (Figure ). These earthquakes evidently have an impact on the assessment of seismic hazards, as illustrated by the seismic hazard map of Europe, displayed in Figure , financed by the European Commission. High seismic risk is characteristic for areas around the Mediterranean, but also for the Romanian Carpathians area, very close to the city of Bucharest, and also elsewhere. This is illustrated in Figure for the Rhine Rift which formed the Rhine Valley, a site of major concentration of infrastructure in Europe (see also Figure for other natural hazards associated with differential topography).

FundersFunder number
European Research Foundation

    Keywords

    • Anomalies
    • Central-asia
    • Constraints
    • Enhanced geothermal system
    • Mantle plume
    • Margins
    • Stress
    • Topo-europe

    UN SDGs

    This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

    • SDG 13 - Climate Action

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