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Science 4 November 1988:
Vol. 242. no. 4879, pp. 749 - 752
DOI: 10.1126/science.242.4879.749
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Articles

Thermodynamic Efficiency of Brittle Frictional Mountain Building

TERENCE D. BARR 1 and F. A. DAHLEN 1

1 Department of Geological and Geophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544.

An active fold-and-thrust belt in unchanging tectonic and climatic conditions attains a dynamic steady-state in which the influx of accreted material at the toe is balanced by the erosive efflux off the top. The overall balance of energy in such a steady-state fold-and-thrust belt is described by the equation Edot = WG + Q, where Edot is the rate at which both mechanical and heat energy are added from external sources, WG is the rate of work performed against gravitational body forces, and Q is the rate at which waste heat flows out of the upper and lower boundaries. The total amount of power being supplied to the active Taiwan fold-and-thrust belt by the subducting Eurasian plate and in situ radioactivity is 4.2 gigawatts. Because only 0.5 gigawatts are expended in doing useful work against gravity and the remaining 3.7 gigawatts are ejected as heat, the efficiency of brittle frictional mountain building in Taiwan is 11 percent.

Submitted on June 17, 1988
Accepted on September 16, 1988


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Tectonic geomorphology.
M.A. Summerfield (1991)
Progress in Physical Geography 15, 193-205
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)