Shear-wave polarization anisotropy in the Pacific Basin |
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| Authors: | J W Schlue L Knopoff |
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| Institution: | Department of Geoscience, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro, New Mexico 87801;Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90024, USA |
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| Abstract: | Summary. Inversion of 295. Love- and Rayleigh-wave phase travel times across the Pacific Basin has yielded a structure which has a channel that is anisotropic with respect to the polarization of shear waves. The velocity of SH waves is approximately 4.24 km/s, and the velocity of SV waves is approximately 4.10 km/s in the low-velocity channel. The lid to the channel is isotropic with respect to the polarization of S waves and the velocity is approximately 4.60 km/s. The lid to the low-velocity channel increases in thickness with lithospheric age at the expense of the channel, and its thickness is apparently still increasing at a sea-floor age of 150 Myr.
These results can be explained in terms of a model with both randomly-and preferentially-oriented, liquid-filled cracks in the channel. In the model, it is assumed that the liquid-filled cracks are due to partial melting in the channel, and that any preferred orientation is caused by a shear-flow gradient resulting from differential motion between the lid and the deeper parts of the mantle. |
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