An Ice Pump is a thermohaline mechanism of varying the thickness of an ice shelf. Salt is rejected as water crystallizes so the remaining liquid is saltier. The saltier water is more dense (i.e. has negative buoyancy) and sinks The salty water will melt the ice sheet through contact with it at deeper depths because it has a lower melting point The freshwater melt from the ice shell will be less dense and rise to shallower regions where it will refreeze…
The color any object appears to be is actually the color most readily reflected away from it. The color of a mineral is is commonly due to the presence of trace elements and/or defects in the crystal structure and can be described in three broad categories. Crystal Field Transition: Electrons in the d orbital of transition elements (a.ka. chromophore elements) leap to higher energy levels when a light is shone upon them by absorbing some of the light at the…
A diapir is region of lower density material (in this case salt) intruding into the overlying material. Salt Diapirs are formed through the slow process of evaporation, sedimentation, and compaction. A region experiences frequent flooding Subsequent evaporation will deposit salt The area is covered by later deposition where the overlying material will compact the deeper material. The density of the deeper sediment will increase while the density of salt is less affected by the pressure because of its crystal structure…
Plate Tectonics is the process of creating new crust at mid-ocean ridges and recycling older, denser crust back into the interior at subduction zones. Subduction is driven by two main mechanical processes: slab-pull and ridge-push. RIDGE PUSH High ridges are produced by the positive buoyancy of material in regions of localized heating. Ridge-push utilizes the potential energy of the height of these ridges to force slabs to subduct. SLAB-PULL Slab-pull depends on the negative buoyancy of the cold subducting slab to pull itself deeper into…
The Rossby Number describes the importance of the rotation of the frame on the flow. It is the ratio of the inertial force (e.g. buoyancy) of the fluid to the Coriolis force imposed by rotation. A larger Rossby number will mean the flow’s behavior is less dependent on the rotation. where describes the typical magnitude of the horizontal flow components, is the rotation rate, is the latitude of the fluid parcel on a sphere (e.g. Earth), f is the…