Peter Bird

Professor of Geophysics and Geology

Department of Earth and Space Sciences

University of California, Los Angeles

Then (1972): Now (1996):

How to get in touch:

E-mail to: pbird@ess.ucla.edu

Phone at: (310) 825-1126 (answering machine)

Fax to: (310) 825-2779 (shared with department; use cover page)

Snail-mail to:


Free F-E & other programs:

[click to enlarge]

I maintain an FTP site at pong.igpp.ucla.edu/pub/pbird which includes source code for 4 different finite-element programs that may be useful to geologists, geophysicists, and tectonophysicists. The codes that you obtain here are mostly in FORTRAN77, and you will need to compile them for your own computer system. Download these files as ASCII. However, there are some utility programs (and other goodies) with .EXE extensions; these are executable programs for DOS (or DOS boxes on other operating systems) and you should download them as binary data.

Start with the "read_me" file, which is plain ASCII.


Publications of Peter Bird:

(Note: An abstract is only included if it has not yet been followed by a paper.)

Bird, P., and J. D. Phillips (1975) Oblique spreading near the Oceanographer Fracture, J. Geophys. Res., 80, 4021-4027.

Bird, P., M. N. Toksoz, and N. H. Sleep (1975) Thermal and mechanical models of continent-continent convergence zones, J. Geophys. Res., 80, 4405-4416.

Toksoz, M. N., and P. Bird (1977) Modeling of temperatures in continental convergence zones, Tectonophysics, 41, 181-193.

Bird, P., and M. N. Toksoz (1977) Strong attenuation of Rayleigh waves in Tibet, Nature, 266, 161-163.

Toksoz, M. N., and P. Bird (1977) Formation and evolution of marginal basins and continental plateaus, in: M. Talwani and W. C. Pitman, III (Ed.), Island Arcs, Deep Sea Trenches, and Back Arc Basins, Maurice Ewing Series 1, Am. Geophys. Union, Washington, 379-394.

Bird, P. (1978a) Initiation of intracontinental subduction in the Himalaya, J. Geophys. Res., 83, 4975-4987.

Bird, P. (1978b) Finite-element modeling of lithosphere deformation: The Zagros collision orogeny, Tectonophysics, 50, 307-336.

Bird, P. (1978c) Stress and temperature in subduction shear zones: Tonga and Mariana, Geophys. J. R. Astron. Soc., 55, 411-434.

Bird, P. (1979) Continental delamination and the Colorado Plateau, J. Geophys. Res., 84, 7561-7571.

Bird, P., and D. A. Yuen (1979) The use of the minimum-dissipation principle in tectonophysics, Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 45, 214-217.

Bird, P., and K. Piper (1980) Plane-stress finite-element models of tectonic flow in southern California, Phys. Earth Planet. Int., 21, 158- 175.

Bird, P., and J. Baumgardner (1981) Steady propagation of delamination events, J. Geophys. Res., 86, 4891-4903.

Bird, P. (1982) Reply re: Initiation of intracontinental subduction in the Himalaya, J. Geophys. Res., 86, 9323-9324.

Bird, P., and J. Baumgardner (1983) 3-D Finite element modeling of the Earth's free oscillations, Eos, 64, 754.

Bird, P. (1984) Hydration-phase diagrams and friction of montmorillonite under laboratory and geologic conditions, with implications for shale compaction, slope stability, and strength of fault gouge, Tectonophysics, 107, 235-260.

Bird, P., and J. Baumgardner (1984) Fault friction, regional stress, and crust-mantle coupling in southern California from finite element models, J. Geophys. Res., 89, 1932-1944.

Bird, P., and R. Rosenstock (1984) Kinematics of present crust and mantle flow in southern California, Geol. Soc. Am. Bull., 95, 946- 957.

Bird, P. (1985) Laramide crustal thickening event in the Rocky Mountain foreland and Great Plains, Tectonics, 3, 741-758.

Bird, P. (1986) Tectonics of the terrestrial planets, in: M. G. Kivelson (Ed.), The Solar System: Observations and Interpretations, Rubey Volume 4, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 176- 206.

Bird, P. (1988) Formation of the Rocky Mountains, western United States: a continuum computer model, Science, 239, 1501-1507.

Bird, P. (1989a) New finite element techniques for modeling deformation histories of continents with stratified temperature- dependent rheologies, J. Geophys. Res., 94, 3967-3990.

Bird, P. (1989b) A test of competing "northern option" and "southern option" tectonic models for the Tertiary of North America, Geol. Soc. Am. Abstr. Prog., 21, 82.

Bird, P., and A. J. Gratz (1990) A theory for buckling of the mantle lithosphere and Moho during compressive detachments in continents, Tectonophysics, 177, 325-336.

Bird, P., and D. R. Williams (1990) Lack of lateral extrusion on Venus limits thickness of the crust, Eos, 71, 1423.

Gratz, A. J., P. Bird, and G. B. Quiro (1990) Dissolution of quartz in aqueous basic solution, 106-236 C: Surface kinetics of "perfect" crystallographic faces, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 54, 2911- 2922.

Bird, P. (1991) Lateral extrusion of lower crust from under high topography, in the isostatic limit, J. Geophys. Res., 96, 10,275- 10,286.

Bird, P. (1992) Deformation and uplift of North America in the Cenozoic era, in: K. R. Billingsley, H. U. Brown, III, and E. Derohanes (eds.), Scientific Excellence in Supercomputing: the IBM 1990 Contest Prize Papers, Baldwin Press, Athens, Georgia, v. 1, pp. 67-105.

Kemp, D. V., and P. Bird (1992) Bending and dynamic support of subducted slabs, Eos Trans. AGU, 73(43), Fall Meeting Suppl., 386.

Gratz, A. J., and P. Bird (1993a) Quartz dissolution: Negative crystal experiments and a rate law, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 57, 965-976.

Gratz, A. J., and P. Bird (1993b) Quartz dissolution: Theory of rough and smooth surfaces, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 57, 977-989.

Bird, P. and X. Kong (1994) Computer simulations of California tectonics confirm very low strength of major faults, Geol. Soc. Am. Bull., 106 (2), 159-174.

Bird, P. (1994) Isotopic evidence for preservation of Cordilleran lithospheric mantle during the Sevier-Laramide orogeny, western United States: Comment, Geology, 22 (7), 670-671.

Bird, P. (1994) Finite-element models of global tectonics require driving forces from mantle convection, Eos Trans. AGU, Fall Meeting Supplement, 177.

Bird, P. (1995) Lithosphere dynamics and continental deformation, Rev. Geophys., Supplement: U.S. National Report to IUGG 1991-94, 379- 383.

Kong, X., and P. Bird (1995) SHELLS: A thin-shell program for modeling neotectonics of regional or global lithosphere with faults, J. Geophys. Res., 100, 22,129-22,131.

Bird, P., and Yao Li (1996) Interpolation of principal stress directions by nonparametric statistics: Global maps with confidence limits, J. Geophys. Res., 101, 5435-5443.

Bird, P. (1996) Computer simulations of Alaskan neotectonics, Tectonics, 15, 225-236.

Kong, X., and P. Bird (1996) Neotectonics of Asia: Thin-shell finite- element models with faults, in: An Yin and T. M. Harrison (ed.s), The Tectonic Evolution of Asia, Cambridge University Press, p. 18-34.


pbird@ess.ucla.edu