Abstract:

It has been hypothesized that the near equal angular radii of the Sun and Moon influenced the evolution of the early tetrapods via the creation of upper inter-tidal zones. In order to test this hypothesis it is necessary to use hydro-dynamical modelling to infer what the tides looked like during the middle Devonian period. Due the large and unconstrained uncertainties in bathymetric reconstructions for that time period a statistical approach is taken. Despite the tides being some of the most predicable components of present day ocean dynamics, on large, geological, time scales we must think statistically. In this study we present an ensemble modelling framework for paleo-tidal computations. We compute the tides for an ensemble of $N$ randomly perturbed Devonian bathymetric reconstructions and examine their statistics. This preliminary study indicates the presence of robust features of the Devonian tides, supporting the suggestion of their importance to the evolution of early Tetrapods.

(Host faculty: Prof. Julian MAK)

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