Imaging the mantle flow field beneath the Atlantic Ocean using seismic waves
Department
Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering
Major
Geology and Geophysics
Research Advisor
Gao, Stephen S.
Advisor's Department
Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering
Funding Source
Opportunities for Undergraduate Research (OURE)
Abstract
Shear wave splitting (SWS) is an unambiguous indicator of anisotropy and a robust tool to help understanding the structure and dynamics of the Earth’s deep interior. In this project, I relate the splitting measurements to mantle flow covering the major tectonic provinces in Southeast Brazil on the Atlantic Shield, mid-ocean ridge and middle of the West Africa to study and image the mantle flow field. The previous studies indicate that the fast-polarization direction of most of the continents tends to be close to the absolute plate motion direction. The relatively stable measurements on the Africa do manifest the correlation. However, our data on the Atlantic Shield of South America shows that the SKS fast-polarization directions does not correlate well with the flow models of the upper mantle and the results presented indicates that the relatively coarse lithospheric thickness could be one of the reasons for the low correlation.
Biography
Chenyi Mao is a senior international transfer student majored in Geology and Geophysics. She is set to graduate in May 2014 and hopes to continue her further education in Geophysics. During the four-year undergraduate study, she is now familiar with the Linux system, GMT, and Fortran Programming Language. Besides, after taking the specialized courses of geology and experiencing the advanced field camp, she has a deeper comprehension of geological structure and mineralogy. In addition, she is open-minded and active in integrating the local life.
Research Category
Sciences
Presentation Type
Poster Presentation
Document Type
Poster
Location
Upper Atrium/Hall
Presentation Date
16 Apr 2014, 9:00 am - 11:45 am
Imaging the mantle flow field beneath the Atlantic Ocean using seismic waves
Upper Atrium/Hall
Shear wave splitting (SWS) is an unambiguous indicator of anisotropy and a robust tool to help understanding the structure and dynamics of the Earth’s deep interior. In this project, I relate the splitting measurements to mantle flow covering the major tectonic provinces in Southeast Brazil on the Atlantic Shield, mid-ocean ridge and middle of the West Africa to study and image the mantle flow field. The previous studies indicate that the fast-polarization direction of most of the continents tends to be close to the absolute plate motion direction. The relatively stable measurements on the Africa do manifest the correlation. However, our data on the Atlantic Shield of South America shows that the SKS fast-polarization directions does not correlate well with the flow models of the upper mantle and the results presented indicates that the relatively coarse lithospheric thickness could be one of the reasons for the low correlation.
Comments
Joint project with Dan Wang, Chunyu Liu