A sharp lithosphere–asthenosphere boundary imaged beneath eastern North America

Catherine A. Rychert (), Karen M. Fischer and Stéphane Rondenay
Additional contact information
Catherine A. Rychert: Brown University
Karen M. Fischer: Brown University
Stéphane Rondenay: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Nature, 2005, vol. 436, issue 7050, 542-545

Abstract: Plate tectonics on the rocks Although a rigid lithosphere (about 100 km of crust and uppermost mantle) moving over a weaker asthenosphere (a few hundred kilometres of more deformable rock) is a widely accepted aspect of plate tectonics, the properties of the boundary between them are poorly understood. When compressional waves (P-waves) from an earthquake encounter an interface at an angle, some of the energy is converted to shear waves (or S-waves). These ‘converted’ waves can be used to construct an image of the interface. Based on converted waves recorded in eastern North America, the lithosphere–asthenosphere boundary has been resolved as a sharp gradient that cannot be explained by thermal gradients alone, indicating that the boundary is controlled by melt or high water content in the asthenosphere.

Date: 2005
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature03904 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:436:y:2005:i:7050:d:10.1038_nature03904

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature03904

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().