TOPO-EUROPE - 3. The natural laboratory concept

3. The natural laboratory concept: from orogen through platform to continental margin

Fig. 27. Location of the TOPO-EUROPE natural laboratories discussed in the text.

The TOPO-EUROPE network provides a discussion forum for a multidisciplinary research programme which functions in a feedback mode between advancement of new numerical modelling concepts and their validation by an array of geological and geophysical datasets from a number of natural laboratories in Europe. To this purpose the network concentrates on well documented regions, each of which is optimally suited to address the coupling between tectonic (endogenic) and surface (exogenic) processes and the related effects on topography development and inherent geo-hazards (Fig. 27).

TOPO-EUROPE up-scales the expertise acquired during the EUROPROBE programme through the integration of the above-described components as the fundamental approach to provide conditions for closing the loop between observation, reconstruction and process-oriented modelling. TOPO-EUROPE integrates geology, geophysics, geodesy and geotechnology and provides the frame for intense cross-fertilization between these disciplines. By working together in a concerted effort on common data sets, an optimal dissemination of results will be achieved.

Integration of data sets and data handling is a vital to the efficient transmission of findings through the above mentioned chain of components. In TOPO-EUROPE this can be achieved via a number of connected implementation steps centred on three key cells, namely: (1) the creation of new think-tanks for the development and implementation of new conceptual approaches and testing of their viability against geological and geophysical data from selected natural laboratories; (2) the creation of new Earth System teams working jointly on unexplored interfaces between existing research activities; and (3) building of information technology cells to optimize integrated data handling, interdisciplinary modelling and software integration.

Integrated approach to selected natural laboratories and analogues

In Earth Sciences, analogues are the key to reconstructing the past and predicting the future. The Earth’s natural laboratories provide observations on different time slices at a range of scales. An unparalleled opportunity to fill the gaps in our present understanding of the Solid-Earth system is provided by comparison and quantitative analysis of high resolution 4-D data cubes generated by the chain of the 4 integrated TOPO-EUROPE components. Such comparisons can be made at different time and space scales.

TOPO-EUROPE operates in an iterative manner with initial models being developed to explain existing data sets and concepts. In parallel, new higher resolution data will be acquired in a number of carefully selected European natural laboratories. The derived numerical models will then be tested and refined on the basis of the new data.

The TOPO-EUROPE integrative research program is centred on critical regional and continental-scale Earth Science problems in carefully selected natural laboratories that cover a wide range of geodynamic settings and geo-hazard provinces, for each of which extensive databases are available. Examples are (Fig. 27):

The Alps/Carpathians-Pannonian Basin System, where mountain building and the development of deep continental basins has created Europe’s weakest crust, prone to major earthquakes, land slides and flooding
The West and Central European Platform, where the continent is breaking apart, land is subsiding below sea level and much of Europe’s population and infrastructure are concentrated
The Aegean-Anatolian and Apennines-Tyrrhenian regions where seismicity, volcanism and mountain building result from the ongoing collision of the European and African-Arabian plates during the final closing stages of an ocean
The Iberian Peninsula, where discrimination between deformation induced by plate boundary forces and by deep-seated thermal anomalies is needed
The Scandinavian Continental Margin, where continental rupturing resulted in opening of an oceanic basin and the development of ocean-continent boundary zones rich in hydrocarbons
The East-European Platform, where key research will target the detailed structure of the upper mantle to constrain ancient tectonic analogues of modern geodynamic processes and to evaluate the effect of deep mantle processes on reworking of the lithosphere leading to on-going subsidence of its southern margins
The Caucasus and the Levant, where the interaction between continental collision and continental extension can be studied in an area with the highest topography of Europe (the Caucasus Mountains) and the lowest continental depression (the Dead Sea)
Analogues elsewhere in the world, such as the Andes, the western USA and the Middle East

Together these natural laboratories provide a set of world-class opportunities to probe and quantify the entire range of plate interaction processes affecting topography in the context of presently active geological processes. In these areas we can obtain the highest possible resolution required to discriminate between endogenic and exogenic Earth processes, required to quantify the coupling between Solid-Earth and surface processes. TOPO-Europe’s natural laboratories discussed below offer unique key study areas for developing a new generation of models explaining ongoing deformation of the lithosphere and its repercussions on continental topography and the human habitat. Other natural laboratories may be selected as the project advances. These will be chosen based on their merits.