HR: 15:25h
AN: U43A-06 INVITED     [Abstracts]
TI: Einstein's meanders
AU: * Lomnitz, C
EM: cinna@prodigy.net.mx
AF: National University of Mexico (UNAM), Institute of Geophysics, Mexico, DF 01000, Mexico
AB: What does Einstein have to do with subduction? Good question. Peaceful Lake Budi, lying at the heart of an Indian reservation in the Deep South of Chile, had subsided by two meters in the 1960 mega-thrust earthquake. This unique South American salt lake was hiding an awful secret: it was actually an oxbow, not a lake. But Einstein had realized in 1926 that meanders are natural freaks. Rivers will not flow uphill, yet - he claimed - they don't flow down the path of steepest descent either. This anomaly was put at the doorstep of a weak Coriolis Force. Thus Einstein problematized the dilemma of the earth sciences. How can a non-force produce margin-parallel compression in a convergent margin where extension is expected? In fact, where does the energy for meander formation come from? Good question . . . Even Wikipedia knows that Coriolis is not a “force” but an “effect”. So is the obliquity of plate convergence in subduction. Where did Einstein err, and where was he a pioneer? Coastal ablation plus alternating subsidence and emergence in giant earthquakes may yield an answer. Einstein, A. (1926). Die Ursache der Maeanderbildung der Flusslaeufe und das sogenannte Baersche Gesetz, Naturwissenschaften, 14, fascicle II.
DE: 1856 River channels (0483, 0744)
DE: 3060 Subduction zone processes (1031, 3613, 8170, 8413)
DE: 7215 Earthquake source observations (1240)
DE: 7221 Paleoseismology (8036)
DE: 8170 Subduction zone processes (1031, 3060, 3613, 8413)
SC: Union [U]
MN: 2007 Joint Assembly