Instability of the Earth’s Lithosphere

B.I. Birger was born on January 19, 1944, in Moscow. He graduated from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Russia, with a degree in theoretical physics. Since 1974 he has been working at the Schmidt Institute of Physics of the Earth, Russian Academy of Sciences. He is engaged in theoretical research of thermal convection and other geodynamic processes in the Earth’s mantle associated with the complex non-Newtonian rheology of the mantle. B.I. Birger developed a new nonlinear and memory- based rheological model of the mantle material and for the first time introduced into geophysics the concept of thermoconvective oscillations and waves. B.I. Birger considers low-amplitude thermoconvective oscillations of the continental lithosphere as a mechanism that causes the oscillatory movements of the earth’s crust known in geology and determines the formation and evolution of sedimentary basins. In recent years, B.I. Birger has been working on problems of seismology.