Chaotic Processes in the Geological Sciences

The subject matter of chaos and nonlinear dynamics has begun to spread to the geological sciences in the last several years. The articles in this book are from a workshop held at the University of Minnesota in June 1990 in which well-renowned geophysicists, geologists and applied mathematicians were in attendance. There were three areas of focus in the workshop: thermal convection as applied to the earth's mantle, magmatic dynamics and processes in geodynamo. The nonlinear nature of convection was discussed especially in light of recent advances made in the physics community of the phenomenon of hard-turbulent convection. This book is useful for graduate students and researchers in geophysics, applied mechanics, and applied mathematics. It should also be of interest to workers in other areas of thermal convection.