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Thorsten W. Becker

Editor of AGU Advances

Former Editor in Chief, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems; University of Southern California, Los Angeles

Map from the study.
Posted inEditors' Highlights

300 Million Years of Polar Wander: Slowly but Surely

by Thorsten W. Becker 16 April 202516 April 2025

A reanalysis of paleomagnetic poles provides tighter bounds on the style and rate of motions of our whole planet with respect to its rotation axis.

Photo of a caldera
Posted inEditors' Highlights

Deflected Dikes Perturb the Plumbing System

by Thorsten W. Becker 11 April 202510 April 2025

A multidisciplinary synthesis of the Campi Flegrei, Italy volcanic setting highlights the importance of sub-caldera layering for magma dynamics.

Graph and map from the study
Posted inEditors' Highlights

How (Slow) Earthquakes Get Going

by Thorsten W. Becker 17 March 202517 March 2025

Non-volcanic tremor ramp up precedes slow slip in Cascadia by about a day, indicating that brittle-creeping process interactions control nucleation.

Map from the study.
Posted inEditors' Highlights

Skewed Subduction Shear Zones

by Thorsten W. Becker 20 February 202519 February 2025

A global reanalysis of both short- and long-term deformation clarifies how obliquity affects strain partitioning in convergent plate boundaries.

A colorful map with data points.
Posted inEditors' Highlights

Compositional Anomalies Complicate Our Model of Mantle Convection

by Thorsten W. Becker 20 November 202420 November 2024

A new study expands on recent research which suggests that oceanic crust accumulates in the mid-mantle. The new seismological constraints advance our understanding of thermo-chemical planetary evolution.

Sea surface reflection from satellite images showing solitary wave fronts
Posted inEditors' Highlights

Atoll Seismometer Detection of Solitary Ocean Waves

by Thorsten W. Becker 10 September 202113 January 2022

Seismic recordings from the South China Sea indicate that subtle, daily tilting of shorelines due to passing internal ocean waves can be measured on land, promising new constraints on ocean dynamics.

Plot showing complementary strengths and weaknesses of existing and emerging seismic instrumentation for earthquake response.
Posted inEditors' Highlights

Aftershocks and Fiber Optics

by Thorsten W. Becker 28 June 202114 May 2024

Internet cables can be transformed into a string of dense seismic sensors, and this approach has now been shown to be highly useful for quickly monitoring seismicity after major earthquakes.

Plot showing magnitude of earthquakes before and after the inferred triggering time in southern California.
Posted inEditors' Highlights

Earthquake Rates Enhanced by Triggered Creep

by Thorsten W. Becker 13 May 202113 January 2022

Analysis of California earthquakes solidifies links between shaking due to remote earthquakes and increased local earthquake activity that persists for times longer than for regular aftershocks.

Illustration of grains being sheared off fault sides and ground up
Posted inEditors' Highlights

Groove is in the Fault

by Thorsten W. Becker 16 October 20206 October 2021

Rock sliding experiments on meter scales show groove patterns which are controlled by normal stress. This may help better understand earthquake source conditions from exhumed faults.

Different scenarios influencing plate thickness
Posted inEditors' Highlights

Frequency Dependent Plates

by Thorsten W. Becker 16 October 202030 September 2022

Rocks stretch, break, and flow, depending on how and under which conditions they are loaded. A new formulation to better capture Earth’s rheology is explored in the context of plate thickness.

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