Exercise 6: Quantitative thermochronology, part I

This exercise is part 1 of the exercises on thermochronology. In this exercise you will run a time-dependent 1D heat transfer model, plot predicted geotherms, and predict thermochronometer ages for several thermochronometers.

Overview

This two-part set of exercises is designed to give you a better understanding of thermochronology and the temperature field in the Earth's crust. Thermochronology combines many aspects of what we have studied in this course, including the advection and diffusion equations, erosional processes, and some basic geostatistics. This first part of the exercises on thermochronology is intended to provide an understanding of heat advection and diffusion in the Earth's crust, the time-dependence of thermal processes, and how the thermal history recorded in our "digital rock" can be used to predict thermochronometer ages.

Due date and hints

• Exercise 6 is due by the end of the day next Tuesday (23:59, 10 December 2019).
• Don't forget to check out the hints for this week's exercise if you're having trouble.
• Scores on this exercise are out of 20 points (Problems 1 and 2).

Start working

This week there are 2 problems and a few questions in one notebook:

• Problems 1 and 2: Quantitative thermochronology, part I