Lesson 12 overview

This week we will be introduced to the equations that govern the flow of viscous materials. At depths greater than those where rocks deform in a brittle manner, crustal and mantle rocks can be treated as viscous fluids with very high viscosities. Ice also behaves as a viscous fluid in glaciers, which will be further explored in this week’s exercise. Like the previous two weeks, we will start with a short lecture about the equations of viscous flow and its application to modelling river erosion. There are also some notes posted about viscous flow down an incline. These are not required reading, but may be of interest for the exercise this week. As usual we will finish with the exercise for this week.

  1. Rock and ice as viscous materials lecture slides
  2. Gemmer et al., 2004 - Modelling salt tectonics (optional)
  3. Notes on viscous flow down an incline (optional)
  4. Theory for Exercise 12
  5. Exercise 12
  6. Exercise 12 hints

Learning objectives

After completing this week’s lesson you should be able to:

  • State what a fluid is and how its flow is related to its viscosity
  • Explain why geological fluids deform in a nonlinear fashion
  • Model the flow of ice in valley glaciers using viscous flow equations