Professor Huw Davies

Professor of Geodynamics, Cardiff University

Professor Davies has made significant contributions to our understanding of Earth’s interior dynamics. This includes developing models to understand the formation of magma where tectonic plates converge, as well as the dynamics and heat flux of the mantle (the region between the earth’s crust and the core). He is most renowned for developing the concept of slab breakoff, where the oceanic lithosphere detaches from the continental lithosphere during continental collision. This is a fundamental stage in plate tectonics, a concept now widely used in understanding Earth’s collision zones.