The meeting will feature several large topics regarding the structure, composition and dynamics of the Earth and other planetary bodies. In general each session will include a 40 minute review talk and two 20 minute focussed research talks. Each session will also feature a poster session. Poster sessions will be held in Parkinson court, which allows posters to be displayed throughout the week. The preliminary program for SEDI2012 (subject to change):

At Earth’s surface, we continue to witness a dynamic and changing planet, from the human experience of earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis, to scientifically measured motions of Earth’s tectonic plates and the changing magnetic field. These phenomena point to motions and movements at the surface as well as within. But what are the driving forces that give rise to a shifting and changing surface? To pursue this and other questions, seismologists use waves from earthquakes that travel through Earth’s entire interior – this permits mapping the inaccessible depths of our planet, to the very center. In this presentation I will highlight recent research that depicts an actively convecting mantle (the rock shell down to the core, half way to the center), and giant continental-sized masses at the core-mantle boundary that guide volcano-making plume conduits. Seismological research combined with that from other earth science disciplines is revealing that the nature of the once-assumed bland mantle shell is in fact actively churning with unknown chemical complexities, and that these motions contribute to the constant pushing of Earth’s surface plates, the very motions related to the dynamic surface events we observe.