Rocks stretch, break, and flow, depending on how and under which conditions they are loaded. A new formulation to better capture Earth’s rheology is explored in the context of plate thickness.
Lithosphere
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Strain Rate: The Overlooked Control on Earthquake Depth
Regional strain rate may play as significant a role as temperature in governing the depth distribution of earthquakes in mantle lithosphere.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Unexpected Oceanic Lithosphere-Asthenosphere P-wave Velocities
A peak in seismic P-wave – S-wave velocity ratios at the lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary beneath old Pacific lithosphere requires an additional property besides temperature as an explanation.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Revealing the Arctic Crust
A new model, ArcCRUST, reveals with unprecedent resolution the geometry and the thermal state of the oceanic crust of the High Arctic and Circum-Arctic domain.
Posted inScience Updates
Deciphering the Fate of Plunging Tectonic Plates in Borneo
What happens when subduction stops? A team of scientists installed a dense seismic network in Borneo to investigate causes and consequences of subduction termination.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Novel Technique Finds New Features Under United States
A new high-fidelity tomography harnesses USArray data to expose a wealth of noteworthy crustal and upper mantle structures, including previously unknown anomalies beneath the Appalachians.
Posted inScience Updates
Extending Recent Seismic Imaging Successes to South America
Ambient Noise Tomography Workshop (MIMOSA); Tucson, Arizona, 17–23 January 2016
Posted inResearch Spotlights
A Hole in Earth’s Surface
Research shows that a broken lithosphere underneath the island of Hawai'i could explain the island's patterns of seismic activity.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Variable Mantle Lies Below Ancient Pieces of Earth's Crust
Underneath old and stable pieces of Earth's crust in North America, the mantle's uppermost portion contains multiple layers that change the velocities of seismic waves.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
P Wave Amplitude Decay Offers a Glimpse of Earth's Structure
Scientists look at deep earthquake signals to map how seismic waves lose energy in the upper mantle across the United States.