The Wilson Cycle  - Episode 2 - Ocean Opening
Channel: PHAB Outreach
Date: 2022-06-24

The second of four episodes of "The Wilson Cycle" series.  This is Episode 2: Opening of large oceans by sea-floor spreading. 

In this episode, we have traversed west across the Caledonides in South Norway to look at the evidence for the former presence of oceanic crust that once was formed by sea-floor spreading within the Iapetus Ocean, which separated the two palaeo-continents Baltica and Laurentia. We look at deep-marine pillow-basalts and copper mineralisation in an ancient mine related to black-smoker-type hydrothermal activity during formation of the oceanic crust. These rocks and mineralisations are typically formed along spreading ridges in oceans and both represent evidence for the sea-floor spreading within the Iapetus Ocean.

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Join us to discover the Wilson Cycle, one of the most fundamental concepts in geology. The “Wilson Cycle” explains the process of orogeny, which related to the formation of the world's large-scale mountain belts by a series geological events. The various elements of Wilson Cycle (and the Supercontinent Cycle, more broadly) have underpinned and inspired many of the research undertaken over the last 10 years at CEED. 

Production, financial support and acknowledgements:
The Centre for Earth Evolution and Dynamics (CEED) at the University of Oslo (UiO), Norway. 
License: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Professor Torgeir B. Andersen (CEED, UiO) and his former PhD students/Post Doc at CEED, Dr Hans-Jørgen Kjøll (now at IG-UiO) and Dr Johannes Jakob (now at NGU) guide us through the geotraverse and explained details of the geological observations.

Dr Valentina Magni (CEED, UiO) shows and explains some computer simulations to illustrate elements of Wilson Cycle Tectonics, such as subduction and Island-arc formation and eduction.

Dr Dougal Jerram (CEED, UiO) is the narrator, asks all the important questions and introduces and summarise explanations underway.

Assistant Professor Owen Anfinson (Sonoma State University, U.S.A) helped with skilful drone-piloting under the instruction of main photographer Andrew Blix, who together with Dougal Jerram have edited and produced the final four clips of our Wilson Cycle movie.

Norwegian Research Council's financial support to CEED and the Fri-Nat Project “Hyper-extension along the Pre-Caledonian margin of Baltica” together with the INTPART NOR-R-AM and NOR-R-AM2 "Changes at the Top of the World through Volcanism and Plate Tectonics: Arctic Norwegian-Russian-North American collaboration" project financed the film project.

SGC (Sunnfjord Geo-Centre) with Einar Alsaker is thanked for help and guidance during visit to the Staveneset copper mine. Knutholmen A/S w/Svein Fosse provided the boats used during filming.

We hope you enjoy the series!