Martin F.J. Flower
Research Interests
My research involves the interpretation of petrologic and
geochemical evidence for processes in the Earth's interior.
This includes studies of mid-ocean ridge and intraplate oceanic
basalts, ophiolite sequences, and magma genesis at convergent
and colliding plate margins. Together with my graduate students,
current work focuses on the causes of mantle melting, developing
methods for estimating mantle temperatures from magma and
xenolith chemistry, and tracking mantle flow using Sr, Nd,
Pb, O, and Os isotopic 'tracers' in various parts of the
world. I work closely with geophysicists using paleomagnetism,
shear-wave splitting, and tomography, and numerical modelers
- recently, in the western Pacific and currently in Vietnam,
China, and eastern Europe (Romania). I am particularly interested
in mantle and lithospheric responses to continental plate
collisions. Results from our studies in east and southeast
Asia, and, more recently, eastern Europe are helping to clarify
possible roles of collision-induced mantle flow in driving
lithosphere 'escape', plateau uplift, intraplate volcanism,
and backarc basin opening. Although viewed by some as a departure
from classic 'extrusion tectonics' and 'crustal thickening
and shortening', collision-response models of mantle extrusion
have received encouraging support. My work emphasizes integration
of data from diverse sources, including petrography, petrology,
major and trace element geochemistry, isotope geochemistry,
and geophysical investigations. With my colleagues at Northwestern
University, the University of Bucharest, and the Vietnamese
National Center for Science and Technology, I am promoting
a five-year (2000-2004) UNESCO-funded project entitled " Mantle
Dynamic Implications for Tethyan Hazard Mitigation".
Personal Information
Electron
Microprobe Laboratory
Selected recent publications:
Flower, M.F.J. , Russo, R.M., Tamaki, K.
and Hoang, N., 2000. Mantle contamination and the Izu-Bonin-Mariana
(IBM) 'high-tide mark': evidence for mantle extrusion caused
by Tethyan closure. Tectonophysics , in press.
Flower, M.F.J. , Li, P., Lo, C.-H., Hoang,
N., Xie, G.-H. and Huong, N.T., 2000. High-K magmatism in
western Yunnan (China): a record of post-collision cycling
of lithospheric mantle. Journal of Petrology, in
press.
Hoang, N. and Flower, M.F.J. , 1998. Petrogenesis
of Cenozoic basalts from Vietnam; implication for origins
of a 'diffuse igneous province'. Journal of Petrology, 39:
369-395.
Flower, M.F.J. , Tamaki, K. and Hoang,
N., 1998. Mantle extrusion: a model for dispersed volcanism
and DUPAL-like asthenosphere in east Asia and the western
Pacific. In: M.F.J. Flower, S.-L. Chung, C.-H. Lo and T.-Y.
Lee (Editors), Mantle Dynamics and Plate Interactions
in East Asia. American Geophysical Union, Washington,
pp. 67-88.
Hoang, N., Flower, M.F.J. and Carlson,
R.W., 1997. Major, trace element, and isotopic compositions
of Vietnamese basalts; interaction of hydrous EM1-rich asthenosphere
with thinned Eurasian lithosphere. Geochimica et Cosmochimica
Acta, 60: 4329-4351.
|
