Abigail L. Bull

Tomographic filtering of geodynamic models: Implications for model interpretation and large-scale mantle structure

[1] The resolution operator R is a critical accompaniment to tomographic models of the mantle. R facilitates the comparison between conceptual three-dimensional velocity models and tomographic models because it can filter these theoretical models to the spatial resolution of the tomographic model. We compute R for the tomographic model S20RTS (Ritsema et al., 1999, 2004) and two companion models that are based on the same data but derived with different norm damping values. The three models explain (within measurement uncertainty) S-SKS and S-SKKS travel times equally well. To demonstrate how artifacts distort tomographic images and complicate model interpretation, we apply R to (1) a thermochemical and (2) an isochemical model of convection in the mantle that feature different patterns of shear velocity heterogeneity in the deep mantle if we assume that shear velocity heterogeneity is caused by temperature variations only. R suppresses short-wavelength structures, removes strong velocity gradients, and introduces artificial stretching and tilting of velocity anomalies. Temperature anomalies in the thermochemical model resemble the spatial extent of low seismic velocity anomalies and the shear velocity spectrum in the D’’ region better than the isochemical model. However, the thermochemical model overpredicts the amplitude of shear velocity variation and places the African and Pacific anomalies imperfectly. We suspect that inaccurate velocity scaling laws and uncertain initial conditions control these mismatches. Extensive hypothesis testing is required to identify successful models.

Deep mantle structure as a reference frame for movements in and on the Earth

Significance Since the Pangea supercontinent formed about 320 million years ago, plumes that sourced large igneous provinces and kimberlites have been derived from the edges of two stable thermochemical reservoirs at the core–mantle boundary. We test whether it is possible to maintain this remarkable surface-to-deep Earth correlation before Pangea through the development of a new plate reconstruction method and find that our reconstructions for the past 540 million years comply with known geological and tectonic constraints (opening and closure of oceans, mountain building, and more). These results have important implications for Earth history, including the style of mantle convection in the deep past and the long-term stability of mantle reservoirs. Earth’s residual geoid is dominated by a degree-2 mode, with elevated regions above large low shear-wave velocity provinces on the core–mantle boundary beneath Africa and the Pacific. The edges of these deep mantle bodies, when projected radially to the Earth’s surface, correlate with the reconstructed positions of large igneous provinces and kimberlites since Pangea formed about 320 million years ago. Using this surface-to-core–mantle boundary correlation to locate continents in longitude and a novel iterative approach for defining a paleomagnetic reference frame corrected for true polar wander, we have developed a model for absolute plate motion back to earliest Paleozoic time (540 Ma). For the Paleozoic, we have identified six phases of slow, oscillatory true polar wander during which the Earth’s axis of minimum moment of inertia was similar to that of Mesozoic times. The rates of Paleozoic true polar wander (<1°/My) are compatible with those in the Mesozoic, but absolute plate velocities are, on average, twice as high. Our reconstructions generate geologically plausible scenarios, with large igneous provinces and kimberlites sourced from the margins of the large low shear-wave velocity provinces, as in Mesozoic and Cenozoic times. This absolute kinematic model suggests that a degree-2 convection mode within the Earth’s mantle may have operated throughout the entire Phanerozoic.

Global correlation of lower mantle structure and past subduction

Abstract Advances in global seismic tomography have increasingly motivated identification of subducted lithosphere in Earths deep mantle, creating novel opportunities to link plate tectonics and mantle evolution. Chief among those is the quest for a robust subduction reference frame, wherein the mantle assemblage of subducted lithosphere is used to reconstruct past surface tectonics in an absolute framework anchored in the deep Earth. However, the associations heretofore drawn between lower mantle structure and past subduction have been qualitative and conflicting, so the very assumption of a correlation has yet to be quantitatively corroborated. Here we show that a significant, time‐depth progressive correlation can be drawn between reconstructed subduction zones of the last 130 Myr and positive S wave velocity anomalies at 600–2300 km depth, but that further correlation between greater times and depths is not presently demonstrable. This correlation suggests that lower mantle slab sinking rates average between 1.1 and 1.9 cm yr−1.