Department 480 - Centre for Lithospheric Research

The Centre for Lithospheric Research was formed in 2012 at the Czech Geological Survey based on an initiative of the Czech government, which encouraged outstanding Czech researchers living abroad to create excellent research groups of international level in the Czech Republic. The research at the Centre for Lithospheric Research was originally centred around the project "The role of Paleozoic accretionary and collisional orogens on the formation and growth of continental crust", aiming to develop new models of continental growth and mechanisms of formation of Phanerozoic supercontinents. In 2019 the Centre acquired a National foundation excellency project (EXPRO) "Principal mechanisms of peripheral continental growth during supercontinent cycle" which allows to continue the high quality research. The research is carried out together with our closest partners: Institute of Petrology and Structural Geology of Charles University and the Geophysical Institute of Academy of Science, the Czech Republic.

The group integrates geoscientists coming from a variety of different research fields including geodynamics, tectonics, metamorphic petrology, isotope geochemistry, geochronology and geophysics with active research on five continents. The main focus of our group is to develop a new research linking geodynamics of Pacific type accretionary and Tethysian collisional systems. The main processes studied are the melt-assisted flow of orogenic lower crust in these orogens, rheological behavior of the lithosphere and mechanisms of continental growth. The majority of our research is centered around two natural laboratories: the European and North African Variscan belt, which provides an example of a collisional orogen, and the Central Asian Orogenic Belt, representing the Earth largest accretionary orogen. These regions serve as a reference for understanding processes operating during formation of the last supercontinent Pangea.