Immersaview Basic Controls:

Keyboard -

P : Start/Stop Animation

+/- : Speed up/slow down the animation

Enter : Start/Stop Auto-spin

Mouse -

Click and drag the following mouse buttons to initiate the action described

Left button : Rotate the model

Middle button : Zoom in /out

Right button : Pan the data

Click the image for the demo. Zoom in so that the data fills up the screen. Play the animation.

Heart and Lungs :

A representation of the human heart and lungs. The red and blue arrows show the flow of deoxyenated and oxygenated blood.

Quakes - Hypocenters : This is a visualization of hypocenters on subduction zones around the world. The hypocenters come from work by Bob Engdahl (USGS and U ColoradoBoulder) and Rob van der Hilst (MIT and U of Utrect, the Netherlands). This remains the main vehicle to introduce students (at both undergraduate and graduate level) to the spatial distribution of earthquakes as part of the exploration of the dynamic Earth.

A subduction zone is a boundary where two tectonic plates collide and, because of differences in density, one dives beneath the other. This occurs frequently where an oceanic plate meets a continental plate. The denser and thicker oceanic plate is shoved underneath the less dense continental plate. This is currently occurring off the Pacific Northwest coast of North America from Cape Mendocino in California north to British Columbia.

http://www.geo.lsa.umich.edu/~keken/VR/

Indian - Mantle Flow :

This is work done by Peter Van Keken at the University of Michigan. It is the first study of present-day mixing efficiency of the Earth that is based on a 3D spherical model of convection in the Earth's mantle. The model is quite successful in predicting surface plate velocities and the geoid. We consider this model an appropriate approximation of the present-day internal velocity structure in the Earth's mantle. The modeling indicates that a variety of mixing scales exist in the present mantle velocity field. Convection in most regions is characterized by corkscrew-like particle tracks that allow for transport of particles far from their source and possibly for chaotic mixing. Based on this simple model approach, we conclude that the mixing in the present-day Earth is relatively efficient, and that it is not possible for large portions of the Earth mantle to remain isolated over the life time of the Earth.

For the Indian plate there are about 1500 particles. The white ball is indeed the core, to scale. The particles are traced through a steady-state velocity field that was computed from the present day distribution of slabs. It is fully dynamic, and predicts present day plate velocities quite well. The calculation was run on a 16 processor SP2 in 1998. The particle tracing was done in parallel as post-processing on a SGI Origin 2000 in 1998/1999. Each frame that is loaded represents 10 million years. You probably have the one with 200 frames = 2 billion years = 40% of the age of the Earth.

http://www.geo.lsa.umich.edu/~keken/papers/EPSL.99/epsl99.html

Jurassic Tank Demo :

The Jurassic Tank is an experiment conducted to mimic areas of the Earth's crust that are sinking. It's the world's coolest sandbox. The experimental basin at the University of Minnesota can model whole continental shelves. Scientists at the U's St. Anthony Falls Hydraulic Lab have built a 42-foot-long experimental basin called the 'Jurassic Tank' and it's the only model of this process in the world. Crust sinking occurs when the Earth's crustal plates collide or spread apart. Such events formed vast sedimentary basins in northern India, the western United States, the Mississippi Valley and the margins of the Atlantic Ocean.

The visualization playsback data collected by scanners as sediment-loaded water was filled into the tank. You can see the gradual build-up of the floor as the water runs through the tank. The floor sinks when gravel supporting it is removed through an underlying honeycomb of 432 cells. The team studies how crustal sinking and sediment input and buildup interact to produce the sediment layers that fill natural sedimentary basins. Besides an understanding of geologic processes, the team hopes to gain insight into where to look for sandy sediments--the most common "host" for oil deposits--in large natural basins.

MD simulation of Molten Anorthite (Chemistry Balls): Molecular Dynamics is a brute force method to study the relationship between the structure of a material and its properties, to obtain insight from atomic scale modelling that can be used to study macroscopic phenomena. In MD one uses essentially F=ma applied to each atom and hence we generate the trajectories of all atoms in space at a large number of timesteps. Frank Spera at UCSB's Magma Dynamics Lab conducted this experiment on 1300 atoms of material CaAl2Si2O8 - which is anorthite, one of the most abundant elements in the earth's crust. The experiment is conducted at a certain pressure and temperature (4.8 GPa, 4000 Kelvin).

The visualization can be used to study various processes at the molecular level. For example : what is diffusion ? In MD we can visualize the motion of atoms thru time and address issues such as the cooperative nature of diffusion, how temperature affects the hopping motion of atoms, etc. We also can study with MD the changes that occur in the structure of a material as pressure increases. This is especially important in geophysics where we note that at the core-mantle boundary the pressure is 135 GPa and it is hard to do lab experiments at these conditions.

Geo_Dynamics - Seismic Tomography : Similar to the earthquake distribution, seismic tomography allows for a direct and better understanding of the dynamics of the Earth as the data-based models provide a snapshot of present day mantle convection. The data shows a transparent overlay of the topography over the hypocenter data and also isosurfaces (slabs) that connect the high velocity areas in the earth's mantle.

Hickey Mountain : Yosemite : Steve Reynolds uses them for classroom teaching in Arizona.

The Hickey Geology is a classic area. There is a major unconformity (an old erosion surface) that separates vertical and folded layers below from gently tilted layers above. On top of everything are basalt (lava) flows that cap the high mesas (flat-topped mountains). There are really nice cross-cutting relations, such as where several faults cut the older vertical rocks but fail to cut the rock above the unconformity. That is, the faults are younger than the older rocks but younger than the younger ones.

The Yosemite area is another classic, being mostly composed of huge bodies of granite formed from the solidification of molten rock (magma) at depth. Between the granite masses are zones of older rocks that have been cooked and sheared by the heat and movement of the granites.