Roy Livermore

The Open University

Author Statistics

Papers

Citation

H-Index

i-10 index

Research Trends

Author Order

Document Type

Co-Authors

Graeme Eagles

Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung

Andrés Maldonado

Instituto Andaluz de Ciencias de la Tierra

Jesús Galindo‐Zaldívar

Instituto Andaluz de Ciencias de la Tierra

Robert D Larter

British Antarctic Survey

Claus‐Dieter Hillenbrand

British Antarctic Survey

Neil C. Mitchell

University of Manchester

Alan G. Smith

University of Minnesota

Peter Morris

University of Nottingham

Emma Suriñach

Universitat de Barcelona

Juan Carlos Balanyá

Universidad Pablo de Olavide

Cooperative Institutions

British Antarctic Survey

Natural Environment Research Council

Universidad de Granada

University of Cambridge

Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung

Instituto Andaluz de Ciencias de la Tierra

Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas

University of Southampton

Durham University

Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

Author Statistics

Papers

Citation

H-Index

i-10 index

Research Field

Reconstruction and break-out model for the Falkland Islands within Gondwana

Journal of African Earth Sciences (1999)

Bryan Storey Michael L. Curtis Julie Ferris Morag A. Hunter Roy Livermore

Clockwise

Anticline

Pacific Plate

10.1016/s0899-5362(99)00086-x

Cite

Citations (55)

Ups and Downs

Oxford University Press eBooks (2018)

Roy Livermore

Abstract Despite the dumbing-down of education in recent years, it would be unusual to find a ten-year-old who could not name the major continents on a map of the world. Yet how many adults have the faintest idea of the structures that exist within the Earth? Understandably, knowledge is limited by the fact that the Earth’s interior is less accessible than the surface of Pluto, mapped in 2016 by the NASA New Horizons spacecraft. Indeed, Pluto, 7.5 billion kilometres from Earth, was discovered six years earlier than the similar-sized inner core of our planet. Fortunately, modern seismic techniques enable us to image the mantle right down to the core, while laboratory experiments simulating the pressures and temperatures at great depth, combined with computer modelling of mantle convection, help identify its mineral and chemical composition. The results are providing the most rapid advances in our understanding of how this planet works since the great revolution of the 1960s.

Pluto

New horizons

10.1093/oso/9780198717867.003.0011

Cite

Citations (0)

Enhanced magma supply at the southern East Scotia Ridge: evidence for mantle flow around the subducting slab?

Earth and Planetary Science Letters (2001)

N. J. Bruguier Roy Livermore

Magma chamber

Caldera

Slab window

Slab

Hotspot (geology)

10.1016/s0012-821x(01)00408-3

Cite

Citations (57)

The Tectonic Plates are Moving!

Oxford University Press eBooks (2018)

Roy Livermore

Abstract Written in a witty and informal style, this book explains modern plate tectonics in a non-technical manner, showing not only how it accounts for phenomena such as great earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions, but also how it controls conditions at the Earth’s surface, including global geography and climate, making it suitable for life. The book presents the advances that have been made since the establishment of plate tectonics in the 1960s, highlighting, on the fiftieth anniversary of the theory, the contributions of a small number of scientists who have never been widely recognized for their discoveries. Beginning with the publication of a short article in Nature by Vine and Matthews, the book traces the development of plate tectonics through two generations of the theory. First-generation plate tectonics covers the exciting scientific revolution of the 1960s, its heroes, and its villains. The second generation includes the rapid expansions in sonar, satellite, and seismic technologies during the 1980s and 1990s that provided a truly global view of the plates and their motions, and an appreciation of the role of their within the Earth system. Arriving at the cutting edge of the science, the latest results from studies using techniques such as seismic tomography and mineral physics to probe the deep interior are discussed and the prospects for finding plate tectonics on other planets assessed. Ultimately, the book leads to the startling conclusion that, without plate tectonics, the Earth would be as lifeless as Venus.

Seafloor Spreading

Continental drift

10.1093/oso/9780198717867.001.0001

Cite

Citations (7)

Palaeomagnetic constraints on the evolution of the Caledonian-Appalachian orogen

Geological Society London Special Publications (1988)

J. C. Briden Dennis V. Kent P. L. Lapointe J. Roy Roy Livermore

Summary Late Proterozoic and Palaeozoic (pre-Permian) palaeomagnetic data from all regions involved in, or adjacent to, the Caledonian-Appalachian orogenic belt are reviewed. Between about 1100 and about 800 Ma the Laurentian and Baltic shields were close together, prior to the opening phase of the Caledonian-Appalachian Wilson cycle. The problems of tectonic interpretation of Palaeozoic palaeomagnetic data from within and around the belt derive mostly from differences of typically 10°–20° between the pole positions. These can variously be interpreted in terms of (i) relative displacements between different continents or terranes, (ii) differences in ages of remanence and (iii) aberrations due to inadequacy of data or geomagnetic complexity, and it is not always easy to discriminate between these alternatives. If the Pangaea A2 reassembly of continents around the northern and central Atlantic is taken as the end-product of Caledonian-Appalachian orogenesis, the following conclusions can be drawn. 1 Lower Palaeozoic palaeolatitude differences between the N American and British-Scandinavian margins of the Caledonides are small; hence any convergence must have been mainly E-W. 2 There are additional differences which could be due to major pre-Carboniferous strike-slip (more than 1000 km), although later strike-slip on this scale is no longer considered likely. 3 The Lower Palaeozoic apparent polar wander paths for Northern Scotland and N America disagree on face value, but must be reconciled if their conventionally assumed geographic relation is correct. 4 Lower Old Red Sandstone data from Britain and Norway disagree, but this is more likely to be due to magnetic overprinting in the Norwegian rocks than to remnant oceans between the regions of Old Red Sandstone facies. 5 Armorica seems to have been far to the S, adjacent to Gondwana, in Ordovician time. The latest view is that it collided with Euramerica in early Devonian time to form the Old Red Continent. 6 The timing of Gondwana’s collision with the Old Red Continent is controversial; it is within either the late Devonian or the Carboniferous. If it occurred early in that time range, much of Hercynian-Alleghanian orogeny post-dated it.

10.1144/gsl.sp.1988.038.01.03

Cite

Citations (26)

Late Palaeozoic to early Mesozoic evolution of Pangaea

Nature (1986)

Roy Livermore Alan G. Smith F. J. Vine

Pangaea

Supercontinent

Late Devonian extinction

Devonian

10.1038/322162a0

Cite

Citations (42)

Palaeomagnetic constraints on the distribution of continents in the late Silurian and early Devonian

Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences (1985)

Roy Livermore Alan G. Smith J. C. Briden

Silurian and Devonian palaeomagnetic data are reviewed and used to orient continental fragments in a global map-frame. In some cases longitude separations have been estimated from palaeontological data. The resulting maps show a possible evolution of the continents in Silurian and Devonian time. A 10° present-day latitude-longitude grid has been rotated to past positions and the extent of areas involved in subsequent deformation are shown. Two internally consistent alternatives are presented for the Silurian-Devonian boundary reconstruction. The first draws on North American and Baltic data, mostly from cratonic sediments; the second uses British data obtained mostly from igneous rocks, and admits poles from SE Australia in positioning Gondwanaland. Choosing between these alternatives depends on having better data from Gondwanaland and on evaluating the hypothesis of large-scale remagnetization of red beds

Devonian

Longitude

Continental drift

Late Devonian extinction

10.1098/rstb.1985.0069

Cite

Citations (47)

Details of an Extinct Rift Embedded on the Western Flank of the Southernmost Mid-Atlantic Ridge

AGUSM (2002)

K. M. Marks A. A. Tikku Joann M. Stock Roy Livermore

Flank

Mid-Atlantic Ridge

Source

Cite

Citations (0)

The East Scotia Sea: Mantle to Microbe

Geophysical monograph (2006)

Roy Livermore

The East Scotia Sea is an important geological, oceanographic, and biological gateway between the Pacific and Atlantic realms, containing a particularly good example of back-arc spreading, the East Scotia Ridge. Recent surveys show that the ridge consists of nine segments, separated by nontransform offsets. The five middle segments (E3-E7) have the morphology of slow-intermediate spreading centers and erupt mainly normal mid-ocean ridge basalt lavas. End segments, E2 and E9, are much shallower, have the inflated appearance of faster-spreading ridges, and erupt slightly enriched, plume-influenced rocks with small to moderate subduction components. Spreading rates vary from 62 mm/yr in the north to 70 mm/yr in the south and cannot explain the along-axis variations. Rapid slab retreat is believed to cause flow of Atlantic asthenosphere around the ends of the subducting slab at the South Sandwich Trench, advecting fertile mantle into the back-arc region. Eastward rollback of the slab brings this mantle within 150 km of the volcanic front, where excess melting occurs as a result of fluxing by subduction-related hydrous fluids. This leads to the initiation of magmatically inflated end segments, characterized by thicker crust and elevated topography. Reconnaissance work has detected hydrothermal plumes above the most inflated parts of segments E2 and E9, suggesting a close relationship between mantle inflow, magmatism, and hydrothermal venting. Vent sites at the East Scotia Ridge may be affected by currents from the Weddell Sea and the South Pacific. Hence, the at present unknown vent fauna could be of either Pacific or Atlantic type, or conceivably a combination of both.

Asthenosphere

Mantle plume

Mid-Atlantic Ridge

10.1002/9781118666180.ch12

Cite

Citations (2)

Drake Passage and Cenozoic climate: An open and shut case?

Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems (2007)

Roy Livermore Claus‐Dieter Hillenbrand Michael P. Meredith Graeme Eagles

Drake Passage opening has often been viewed as a single, discrete event, possibly associated with abrupt changes in global circulation and climate at or near the Eocene‐Oligocene boundary. A new plate tectonic model, based on recent reinterpretations of the opening history of basins in the Scotia Sea, suggests that an effective ocean gateway may have developed even earlier, during the middle Eocene. This is consistent with a growing body of evidence from sediment core proxy data for Eocene changes in Southern Ocean circulation and biological productivity. The period between earliest opening after ∼50 Ma and the latest Eocene was characterized by the evolution of various current pathways across the subsiding continental shelves and intervening deep basins. This shallow opening may have caused important changes in Southern Ocean circulation, contributing to Eocene cooling and the growth of Antarctic ice sheets.

Oceanic basin

Paleogene

Global cooling

10.1029/2005gc001224

Cite

Citations (231)