INFINA (EX INFIP)   05545
INSTITUTO DE FISICA INTERDISCIPLINARIA Y APLICADA
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
artículos
Título:
Convergent flow in a twolayer system and mountain building
Autor/es:
CARLOS ALBERTO PERAZZO; JULIO GRATTON
Revista:
PHYSICS OF FLUIDS
Referencias:
Año: 2010
ISSN:
1070-6631
Resumen:
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With the purpose of modelling the process of
mountain building, we investigate the evolution of the ridge produced by the
convergent motion of a system consisting of two layers of liquids that differ
in density and viscosity to simulate the crust and the upper mantle that form a
lithospheric plate. We assume that the motion is driven by basal traction. Assuming
isostasy, we derive a nonlinear differential equation for the evolution of the
thickness of the crust. We solve this equation numerically to obtain the
profile of the range. We find an approximate selfsimilar solution that describes
reasonably well the process and predicts simple scaling laws for the height and
width of the range as well as the shape of the transversal profile. We compare the
theoretical results with the profiles of real mountain belts and find an
excellent agreement.