upper mantle anisotropy beneath the geoscope stations seismic anisotropy has been widely studied this last decade particularly by measuring splitting of vertically propagating core shear waves the main interest in this technique is to characterize upper mantle flow beneath seismic stations on the other hand the major restriction in this method is that a single station gives a single anisotropy measurement alternative methods have been developed in order to avoid this restriction an accurate determination of upper mantle seismic anisotropy beneath a seismic station may allow one by doing anisotropy correction to characterize remote or deeper anisotropy the geoscope network is ideal for this purpose because it is composed of a large set about 26 of high quality broadband seismometers globally distributed and because some of these stations have run for more than 10 years and most of them for more than 5 years we selected about 100 events at each site generally of magnitude mb 6 0 and we performed systematic measurements of the splitting parameters fast polarization direction and delay time t on sks skks and pks phases splitting on oceanic islands has been difficult to observe owing to the low quality of the signal but also perhaps owing to complex upper mantle structures beneath the stations station kip kipapa hawaii in the pacific is the only oceanic geoscope station with a clear anisotropy we determined well constrained splitting parameters for 10 of the 17 continental stations that may be explained by a single anisotropic layer the poor correlation between fast polarization directions and the absolute plate motion together with the apparent incoherence between the plate velocities and the observed delay times suggest that a simple drag induced asthenospheric flow alone fails to explain most of the observations for some stations located on or near major lithospheric structures tam tamanrasset algeria for instance we observe a good correlation between fast polarization directions and regional structures at station scz santa cruz california we found clear variations of the splitting parameters as a function of the event backazimuth compatible with two layers of anisotropy three stations can canberra hyb hyderabad india and ssb saint sauveur badole france seem to be devoid of detectable anisotropy

shear wave splitting in northeast venezuela trinidad and the eastern caribbean abstract we present new measurements of splitting of core shear wave phases sks skks pks recorded at seven stations in the eastern caribbean region six stations in northeastern venezuela and trinidad constituted the secasa92 temporary broadband array the seventh station sjg is installed on puerto rico we also attempted to measure source side splitting of s waves from earthquakes in the lesser antilles subducted slab but with little success mean splitting parameters fast polarization direction and delay time t at the stations are consistently east west trending and over 1 s respectively delay times at the secasa92 array are amongst the highest yet measured reaching 2 1 s and generally over 1 5 s we note an approximately linear decrease in delay times here from maxima at the northernmost stations to a minimum at the southernmost the secasa92 array is situated in the wide south america caribbean sa ca plate boundary zone and sjg is within the north america caribbean na ca plate boundary zone in both cases trends are parallel to the plate boundary zones locally we interpret these results to indicate that the sa ca plate boundary deformation extends to depths of at least 200 km and that south american crust lithospheric mantle and asthenosphere are coherently deformed the extreme delay times we measure are probably the result of transpression in the sa ca plate boundary and overriding of the lesser antilles slab by south america compressional flattening results in extremes of foliation development and dextral shearing yields a strong lineation in upper mantle olivine by contrast the delay time at sjg 1 2 s is near the global average and reflects the fact that the na ca plate boundary zone is purely sinistral or includes minor transtension we note that recent counterclockwise rotation of puerto rico does not apparently affect upper mantle deformation beneath the island we suggest that this rotation is crustal driven by far field sinistral shear and partly decoupled from the mantle shear our results are consistent with the trench parallel mantle flow hypothesis russo and silver 1994 science 263 1105 1111 and indicate that asthenospheric mantle flow beneath the caribbean plate is eastward and probably drives the plate s eastward motion

regional source scaling of the 9 october 2006 underground nuclear explosion in north korea abstract the 9 october 2006 underground nuclear explosion une test in north korea was well monitored by dense regional seismic stations in south korea japan and china this observation allows extensive investigation of the regional source properties of the une the moment for isotropically radiated energy from the une is estimated to be 2 92 10 14 n m source spectra of major regional phases from the une are studied by inverting for apparent moments corner frequencies overshoot parameters attenuation factors and frequency power dependence parameters the overshoot parameters of p phases from the une are estimated to be high while those of s phases are estimated to be significantly low the inverted source spectra agree well with conventional models the low overshoot parameters of s phases suggest that their excitation sources may be different from those for pn and pg it is shown that pn lg and pg lg amplitude ratios are useful for discriminating between unes and natural earthquakes in the frequencies of 1 8 hz

rift propagation detachment faulting and associated magmatism in bransfield strait antarctic peninsula multichannel seismic data from bransfield strait a young 4 ma marginal basin located at the nw tip of the antarctic peninsula reveal a complex array of rifting styles short of clearly defined seafloor spreading the strait is undergoing basinwide extension while enriched mid ocean ridge basalts have been dredged from topographic highs in the ne part of the basin seismic evidence does not support the formation of oceanic crust there acoustic signatures of volcanic crust at known axial deep highs extend laterally subseafloor their distribution and style support propagation of volcanism and associated extension from ne to sw active extensional structures along both margins control a strong physiographic asymmetry the south shetland islands margin is composed of a few closely spaced large offset normal faults the gentler antarctic peninsula margin exhibits broader distributed extension to the ne normal fault polarity reversal structures nfprs dominate listric faults sole into nw dipping low angle reflectors interpreted as detachments to the sw larger nfprs and convex up geometries up to 20 km across suggest broad uplift rather than detachment based extension such uplift may precedes seafloor volcanism and rapid associated deflation along detachments nw se trending accommodation zones also segment the basin along strike bransfield strait extension may result both from plate boundary tectonics at the south shetland trench and at the evolving antarctic scotia plate boundary extension was probably initiated by onset of subduction rollback at the trench as a slab window opened from the sw augmented extension in the ne part of the basin may be a response to left lateral transtension associated with reorganization of the triple junction at the shackleton fracture zone south scotia ridge intersection

shear wave splitting and subcontinental mantle deformation splitting observations are interpreted in terms of the strain induced lattice preferred orientation of mantle minerals especially olivine we consider three hypotheses concerning the origin of the continental anlsotropy 1 strain associated with absolute plate motion as in the oceanic upper mantle 2 crustal stress and 3 the past and present internal deformation of the subcontinental upper mantle by tectonic episodes it is found that the last hypothesis is the most successful namely that the most recent significant episode of internal deformation appears to be the best predictor of q for stable continental regions this is interpreted as fossil anisotropy whereas for presently active regions such as alaska the anisotropy reflects present day tectonic activity in the stable portion of north america there is a good correlation between delay time and lithospheric thickness this is consistent with the anisotropy being localized in the subcontinental lithosphere and suggests that intrinsic anisotropy is approximately constant the acceptance of this hypothesis has several implications for subcontinental mantle deformation first it argues for coherent deformation of the continental lithosphere crust and mantle during orogenies this implies that the anisotropic portion of the lithosphere was present since the deformational episode and rules out the addition of undeformed material to this layer by subsequent underplating or conductive growth of the thermal boundary layer one of the most important issues in the study of orogenies is the need to reconcile the formation of thickened lithosphere with the paradoxically high mantle temperatures often associated with orogenic episodes most efforts to date have focussed on modes of deformation whereby the cold lithospheric mantle is removed by convective instability or delamination and replaced by warm asthenosphere these models however are incompatible with the evidence for preserved coherent lithospheric deformation rather the deformed mantle appears to have been heated in place we suggest that the elevated mantle temperatures may be due to the strain heating accompanying the deformation

a study of the regional variation of low frequency around the korean peninsula we studied regional graphic 1 at 1 hz graphic 2 around the korean peninsula based on broadband vertical component seismic records of six incorporated research institutions for seismology iris global seismographic network stations and 19 korean stations of the korea institute of geoscience and mineral resources kigam using 177 seismic events with magnitudes between 5 3 and 5 7 and depths less than 50 km the reversed two station method was applied and 94 high quality interstation paths were selected from 869 possible pairs these results show high graphic 3 paths around the sea of japan east sea reflecting the typical oceanic structure and low graphic 4 paths around northeastern china related to inactive seismicity assigning these path values into 193 cells around south korea with a size of 1 by 1 we observed that the regional graphic 5 decreased gradually from east to west between 2 and 1 10 3 1 embed inline graphic 2 gif 2 embed inline graphic 3 gif 3 embed inline graphic 4 gif 4 embed inline graphic 5 gif 5 embed inline graphic 6 gif

why fast polarization directions of sks seismic waves are parallel to mountain belts abstract the splitting of sks waves shows that the fast velocity is commonly parallel to the trend of mountain belts this has been related to the anisotropy induced by frozen mantle flow at lithospheric depth when the flow direction is parallel to mountain belts this flow reflects a transcurrent motion parallel to the boundaries of the plates whose collision is responsible for mountain building considering the width of major shear zones transcurrent flow should not reorient the mantle fabric on a transverse width larger than 20 40 km unless the flow is partitioned between several major transcurrent shear zones therefore such a scale seems to be too small to explain the sks results another contribution to the observed mantle anisotropy is suggested to be the fabric induced by mantle flow during a prior event of rifting at the colliding plate boundaries which are derived from passive margins

plate tectonic development of the south west indian ocean a revised reconstruction of east antarctica and africa a revised sequence of reconstructions for east antarctica relative to africa is generated from published seafloor spreading and fracture zone anomalies these date from the cretaceous tertiary boundary to the late jurassic and lead to a revised predrift reconstruction for east and west gondwanaland euler pole 1 67 s 35 99 e rotation angle 53 43 this reconstruction derived wholly from marine data places east antarctica adjacent to the lebombo mountains and south of and subparallel to the sabi acid volcanic suite supporting the postulate that these rocks represent mesozoic plate boundaries this refit implies that part of the coastal plain of mozambique is underlain by oceanic or very highly extended continental crust the reconstruction is supported by the alignment of 1 the cape fold belt with its antarctic equivalents and 2 the western limit of pan african reactivation of the mozambique mobile belt with the western limit of the sverdrupfjella metamorphic suite antarctica initially moved along a transform fault lying immediately east of and subparallel to the lebombo mountains the eastern face of the tugela cone the southeastern face of the falkland plateau in its reconstructed position and the eastern flank of the agulhas plateau in its reconstructed position at m10 time a triple junction formed near the tip of the falkland plateau implying that the oldest lineated magnetic anomalies in the eastern weddell sea associated with this triple junction cannot predate m10 at m2 time the mozambique ridge rifted from the astrid ridge in a ridge jump episode such an event may also explain the presence of magnetic anomalies in the southern mozambique basin gunnerus ridge conrad rise and del cano rise are all tectonically associated with the madagascar ridge

upper mantle seismic anisotropy beneath antarctica and the scotia sea region summary recent investigations on shear wave splitting from recordings of permanent and temporary antarctic seismological stations have lead to a greater understanding of the upper mantle dynamics of the scotia sea region and the continental margin in the eastern weddell sea in terms of their tectonic evolution the analysis of shear wave splitting from teleseismic core sks skks pks and direct s waves reveals the seismic anisotropy and the strain field of the upper mantle similar to the caribbean anisotropy structures in the antarctic peninsula and scotia sea regions are assumed to be influenced by mantle flows in easterly directions around the subducting nazca plate in general anisotropy polarization directions in the scotia sea do not contradict this hypothesis with polarizations oriented nearly e w and therefore aligning with the suggested mantle flow patterns anisotropy strengths decrease from delay times of dt 1 8 s pmsa palmer station in the west towards the east with delay times of dt 0 3 s beneath hope south georgia and cand candlemas south sandwich islands nevertheless a lithospheric and therefore fossil origin cannot be ruled out only the exceptionally high delay times at pmsa probably originate in part from recent asthenospheric flow around the subduction slab of the former phoenix plate beneath the northwestern margin of the antarctic peninsula the continental margin of western dronning maud and coats land plays a crucial role in understanding the early processes during the break up of gondwana upper mantle seismic anisotropy with delay times well over dt 1 s in this region gives new constraints on ancient deformation processes during break up and former episodes two layer modelling reveals archaean anisotropy in the upper layer corresponding well to polarization directions of the south african kaapvaal craton lower layer anisotropy is assumed to have been created during early gondwana rifting stages

subduction influence on magma supply at the east scotia ridge despite a spreading rate of 65 70 km ma 1 the east scotia ridge has along most of its length a form typically associated with slower rates of sea floor spreading this may be a consequence of cooler than normal mantle upwelling which could be a feature of back arc spreading at the northern end of the ridge recently acquired sonar data show a complex rapidly evolving pattern of extension within 100 km of the south sandwich trench new ridge segments appear to be nucleating at or near the boundary between the south american and scotia sea plates and propagating southwards supplanting older segments the most prominent of these north of 56 30 s has been propagating at a rate of approximately 60 km ma 1 for at least 1 ma and displays a morphology unique on this plate boundary a 40 km long axial high exists at the centre of this segment forming one of the shallowest sections of the east scotia ridge beneath it seismic reflection profiles reveal an axial magma chamber or amc reflector similar to those observed beneath the east pacific rise and valu fa ridge simple calculations indicate the existence here of a narrow 1 km wide body of melt at a depth of approximately 3 km beneath the sea floor from the topographic and seismic data we deduce that a localised mantle melting anomaly lies beneath this segment rates of spreading in the east scotia sea show little variation along axis hence the changes in melt supply are related to the unique tectonic setting in which the south american plate is tearing to the east perhaps allowing mantle flow around the end of the subducting slab volatiles released from the torn plate edge and entrained in the flow are a potential cause of the anomalous melting observed a southward mantle flow may have existed beneath the axis of the east scotia ridge throughout its history

the depth distribution of mantle anisotropy beneath the tonga subduction zone abstract shear wave splitting recorded by a temporary deployment of broadband seismometers located above the tonga subduction zone yields strong constraints on the depth distribution of anisotropy in the mantle beneath the tonga back arc region splitting parameters obtained for local s and teleseismic sks phases were modeled using a ray based method that predicts shear wave splitting on individual phase paths and determines the best fitting values of anisotropic strength orientation and depth extent splitting in teleseismic sks phases is identical to that in s phases from local earthquakes that occur at the base of the transition zone demonstrating that there is no significant splitting due to anisotropy in the lower mantle splitting times for local s phases do not vary significantly with depth and for models in which the strength of anisotropy is laterally uniform they rule out anisotropy in the transition zone finally the observed splitting indicates that anisotropy of more than 0 8 exists in the upper mantle with a fast symmetry axis at 60 w roughly parallel to the absolute plate motion vector of the subducting pacific lithosphere

shear wave splitting in the upper mantle wedge above the tonga subduction zone summary intermediate period seismograms of shear waves from deep earthquakes are examined for shear wave splitting diagnostic of seismic velocity anisotropy in the upper mantle wedge between the subducting tonga slab and stations in the fiji islands earthquakes with near vertical incidence angles are selected to minimize complications of converted phases and the free surface horizontal component seismograms for 25 deep earthquakes recorded at station lak on the lau ridge show splitting of up to 0 9 s with an average of 0 45 0 25 s between fast and slow s wave components anisotropy in the upper mantle is the most likely cause of the splitting the ese orientation of the fast velocity direction at station lak corresponds to an axis of symmetry of the anisotropic mantle and is approximately perpendicular to magnetic lineations in the lau basin and the northeastern portion of the south iiji basin the observations are consistent with a model of flow alignment of olivine 100 and orthopyroxene 001 axes parallel to the direction of basin extension seismograms for eight deep earthquakes at station sva on viti levu show up to 1 0 s splitting with an average of 0 65 0 29 s and a weak nne preferred orientation of fast velocity polarizations of shear wave particle motions corrected for anisotropy are within 36 5 26 of polarixations predicted for nine moment tensor solutions the magnitude of shearwave splitting and estimates of the thickness of the lithosphere in the fiji region imply that the anisotropy cannot be contained in the lithosphere alone either the anisotropy is distributed in both the lithosphere and asthenosphere or the asthenosphere alone is anisotropic

mantle flow in subduction systems the subslab flow field and implications for mantle dynamics 1 the character of the mantle flow field in subduction zones remains poorly understood despite its importance for our understanding of subduction dynamics in particular little attention has been paid to mantle flow beneath subducting slabs in order to identify processes that make first order contributions to the global pattern of subslab mantle flow we have compiled shear wave splitting measurements from subduction zones worldwide from previously published studies and estimated average splitting parameters for the subslab region globally the subslab region is overwhelmingly dominated by trench parallel fast splitting directions we tested for relationships between splitting delay time a measure of the strength of anisotropy and parameters that are indicators of tectonic processes such as trench migration velocity convergence velocity and obliquity age of subducting lithosphere and slab dip curvature seismicity and thickness we used several different plate motion models to describe plate and trench motions and evaluated the differences among the models we find that only one parameter namely the trench migration velocity in a pacific hot spot reference frame appears to correlate well with the strength of the subslab splitting signal this finding supports a model in which the mantle beneath subducting slabs is dominated by three dimensional flow induced by trench migration we explore several implications of our model for various aspects of mantle dynamics including the choice of a suitable reference frame s for mantle flow the existence of a thin decoupling zone between slabs and the subslab mantle and consequences for mass transfer between the upper and lower mantle

effects of ridge crest trench interaction on antarctic phoenix spreading forces on a young subducting plate precise measurements of spreading rates on marine magnetic profiles collected to the west of the antarctic peninsula have enabled some consideration of the forces governing plate motion since antarctic phoenix motion has been controlled by the local rather than global force balance over the last 35 m y the total effective driving force per unit length of trench is calculated to have ranged between 2 6 and 3 6 1012 n m which is much less than is commonly thought necessary to support subduction conventional calculations may overestimate slab pull for old slabs because they neglect the effect of extensional disruption in limiting the contribution to the balance of forces at the trench the low estimate of driving forces obtained here implies that resistive forces are also smaller than is generally assumed driving forces show a strong correlation with observed spreading rates which indicates that resistive forces were largely velocity dependent fluid migration up the subduction zone may elevate temperatures in and around the shear zone reducing resistive forces below the levels required by purely conductive models changes in convergence rate may affect the depths of both the brittle ductile deformation boundary and the basalt eclogite phase change causing a negative feedback which would appear as a velocity dependent resistive force the different driving forces acting on the ne and sw parts of the phoenix plate as a consequence of older oceanic lithosphere at the trench in the ne caused antarctic phoenix spreading to take place about a near pole to the sw since 21 m y ago and ultimately resulted in disruption of the phoenix plate about 9 m y ago spreading rates decreased abruptly about 6 m y ago probably because of e w compression across the long transform faults bounding the phoenix plate however spreading on the last three segments of the antarctic phoenix ridge continued at least until 4 m y ago either spreading stopped progressively from sw to ne or the final stage took place about a very near pole to the sw a magnetic quiet zone extends up to 95 km from the margin between the tula fracture zone and the north anvers fracture zone and is thought to indicate that the ridge crest became buried by terrigenous sediment prior to collision the absence of a magnetic quiet zone associated with the most recent ridge crest trench collisions suggests a change in sedimentary regime during the late miocene anomalously fast apparent spreading rates between 23 and 21 m y ago are thought to indicate an error in this part of the magnetic reversal time scale

intrinsic and scattering attenuation from observed seismic codas in the almeria basin southeastern iberian peninsula summary the anelastic attenuation in the almeria basin southeastern iberian peninsula is investigated by using seismic data collected during the summer of 1991 a multiple lapse time window analysis is applied to high frequency seismograms corresponding to 20 shallow seismic events with low magnitudes m 12 5 and distances less than 71 km recorded at six short period seismographic stations we have constructed corrected geometrical spreading and normalized energy distance curves for the region over the frequency bands 1 2 2 4 4 8 8 14 and 14 20 hz a theoretical model for body wave energy propagation in a randomly heterogeneous medium has been employed to interpret the observations two parameters describe the medium in this model the scattering attenuation coefficient qs kq3 and the intrinsic attenuation coefficient yi kq where k is the wavenumber and qr1 and q are the intrinsic and scattering attenuation respectively this model assumes that scattering is isotropic including all orders of multiple scattering and predicting the spatial and temporal energy distribution of seismic energy a least squares fitting procedure has been used to find the best estimates of the model parameters the analysis of the spectral amplitude decay of coda waves has provided coda q values at the same frequency bands the results obtained show that q q2 and q decrease with increasing frequency for frequencies lower than 3 hz scattering attenuation is stronger than intrinsic absorption and coda q takes values between intrinsic and total attenuation being very close to qy q is more frequency dependent than q for frequencies greater than 3 hz intrinsic absorption is the dominant attenuation effect and q and q3 have significant frequency dependence in order to correlate the results obtained with the major geological and tectonic features of the region a geotectonic framework for the area is provided and the predominant frequency decay in coda waves is analysed in order to obtain the coda q frequency dependence following a power law qc qo f fo where fo is a reference frequency in this way we have obtained regionalized values of coda q at 1 hz qo finally a first order approach has allowed us to obtain intrinsic and scattering quality factors from the obtained qo and v values leading us to obtain tentative distributions of q qs and qo at 1 hz for the area the derived intrinsic and scattering quality factor distributions are in good agreement with the tectonic history and the main geological features of the region large scattering and intrinsic attenuation qs n 80 qi 100 are found in the sedimentary neogene and quaternary basin while scattering is the dominant effect in the old palaeozoic rocks of the mountains qs 200 qi 1000 intrinsic q shows a higher sensitivity to the geological characteristics than scattering q

constraints on subduction geodynamics from seismic anisotropy 1 much progress has been made over the past several decades in delineating the structure of subducting slabs but several key aspects of their dynamics remain poorly constrained major unsolved problems in subduction geodynamics include those related to mantle wedge viscosity and rheology slab hydration and dehydration mechanical coupling between slabs and the ambient mantle the geometry of mantle flow above and beneath slabs and the interactions between slabs and deep discontinuities such as the core mantle boundary observations of seismic anisotropy can provide relatively direct constraints on mantle dynamics because of the link between deformation and the resulting anisotropy when mantle rocks are deformed a preferred orientation of individual mineral crystals or materials such as partial melt often develops resulting in the directional dependence of seismic wave speeds measurements of seismic anisotropy thus represent a powerful tool for probing mantle dynamics in subduction systems here i review the observational constraints on seismic anisotropy in subduction zones and discuss how seismic data can place constraints on wedge slab and sub slab anisotropy i also discuss constraints from mineral physics investigations and geodynamical modeling studies and how they inform our interpretation of observations i evaluate different models in light of constraints from seismology geodynamics and mineral physics finally i discuss some of the major unsolved problems related to the dynamics of subduction systems and how ongoing and future work on the characterization and interpretation of seismic anisotropy can lead to progress particularly in frontier areas such as understanding slab dynamics in the deep mantle

shear wave splitting in the appalachians and the urals a case for multilayered anisotropy observations of shear wave splitting in the northeastern u s appalachians and in the foredeep of the urals vary significantly with the back azimuth and incidence angle of the incoming phase these variations suggest two or more layers within the upper mantle with different anisotropic properties synthetic seismograms for simple multilayered anisotropic structures show that shear wave splitting parameters tend to vary substantially with the direction of approach relying on a subset of back azimuth and incidence angle may strongly bias the model inferred especially if the observations are averaged on the other hand the azimuthal splitting pattern provides additional constraints on vertical or lateral variation of anisotropic properties in the earth using a new error estimation technique for splitting we find that individual measurements from broadband data have errors of the order of 3 7 for the fast direction and 0 1 0 2 s for the delay of split shear waves the azimuthal variation of splitting parameters is broadly consistent throughout the appalachian terranes in the northeast united states especially for two long running stations in the northeast united states hrv harvard massachusetts and pal palisades new york observations can be separated into two distinct populations with mean fast axis azimuths of n60 e 4 and n119 e 2 delay values within each population range from near zero to 1 s azimuthal splitting variation for aru arti russia in the foredeep of uralian mountains is characterized by sharp transitions between different groups of observations using synthetic seismograms in simple structures we develop one dimensional anisotropic models under stations hrv and aru the model for hrv includes two layers of anisotropic material under an isotropic crust with fast axis azimuths n53 e and n115 e for the bottom and the top layers respectively the model for the upper mantle under aru includes a layer with a fast axis at n50 e atop a layer with fast axis azimuth n90 e our modeling confirms the need for a layer of strong anisotropy with a slow axis of symmetry in the lower crust under aru reported by levin and park 1997a our results suggest that both urals and appalachians possess a relict anisotropy in the tectosphere associated with past continental collision and accretion underlain by anisotropy with orientation similar to the local absolute plate motion suggesting an asthenospheric component to the signal

trench parallel flow beneath the nazca plate from seismic anisotropy shear wave splitting of s and sks phases reveals the anisotropy and strain field of the mantle beneath the subducting nazca plate cocos plate and the caribbean region these observations can be used to test models of mantle flow two dimensional entrained mantle flow beneath the subducting nazca slab is not consistent with the data rather there is evidence for horizontal trench parallel flow in the mantle beneath the nazca plate along much of the andean subduction zone trench parallel flow is attributale utable to retrograde motion of the slab the decoupling of the slab and underlying mantle and a partial barrier to flow at depth resulting in lateral mantle flow beneath the slab such flow facilitates the transfer of material from the shrinking mantle reservoir beneath the pacific basin to the growing mantle reservoir beneath the atlantic basin trenchparallel flow may explain the eastward motions of the caribbean and scotia sea plates the anomalously shallow bathymetry of the eastern nazca plate the long wavelength geoid high over western south america and it may contribute to the high elevation and intense deformation of the central andes

current plate velocities relative to the hotspots incorporating the nuvel 1 global plate motion model nuvel 1 is a new global model of current relative plate velocities demets et al 1990 which differ significantly from those of prior models here we incorporate nuvel 1 into hs2 nuvel1 a new global model of plate velocities relative to the hotspots hs2 nuvel1 was determined from the hotspot data and errors used by minster and jordan 1978 to determine am1 2 which is their model of plate velocities relative to the hotspots am1 2 is consistent with minster and jordan s relative plate velocity model rm2 here we compare hs2 nuvel1 with am1 2 and examine how their differences relate to differences between nuvel 1 and rm2 hs2 nuvel1 plate velocities relative to the hotspots are mainly similar to those of am1 2 minor differences between the two models include the following 1 in hs2 nuvel1 the speed of the partly continental apparently non subducting indian plate is greater than that of the purely oceanic subducting nazca plate 2 in places the direction of motion of the african antarctic arabian australian caribbean cocos eurasian north american and south american plates differs between models by more than 10 3 in places the speed of the australian caribbean cocos indian and nazca plates differs between models by more than 8 mm yr although 27 of the 30 rm2 euler vectors differ with 95 confidence from those of nuvel 1 only the am1 2 arabia hotspot and india hotspot euler vectors differ with 95 confidence from those of hs2 nuvel1 thus substituting nuvel 1 for rm2 in the inversion for plate velocities relative to the hotspots changes few euler vectors significantly presumably because the uncertainty in the velocity of a plate relative to the hotspots is much greater than the uncertainty in its velocity relative to other plates

upper mantle anisotropy in victoria land antarctica during the austral summers 1993 94 and 1994 95 we operated two temporary seismic arrays in the victoria land region antarctica the first was located around the mt melbourne volcano near terra nova bay and the second southward along the acrup1 geotraverse the aim of these experiments was to provide additional constraints on the moho geometry and on lithosphere asthenosphere structure in this zone for this reason a number of techniques were applied to recorded teleseismic data in this paper we describe the results of the analysis on sks and s wave splitting which show the presence of seismic anisotropy computed fast polarization directions range on average between 131 and 166 and delay times are on the order of 1 s we presume that anisotropy is mainly located in the upper mantle although we cannot detect at present if a contribution from the crust does exist the fast polarization direction we determine is quite parallel to the opening of the ross sea an active rift system but also to the absolute plate motion direction therefore we assume that the identified anisotropy may be induced by the extension activated by plate motion and is still related to it

late proterozoic to early palaeozoic tectonism in dronning maud land antarctica supercontinental fragmentation and amalgamation the mid proterozoic early palaeozoic tectonic development of western dronning maud land is examined in the light of recent proposals that suggest geological continuity between laurentia and gondwana during the middle proterozoic the sweat hypothesis gondwana amalgamation from the remaining constituents followed fragmentation and rifting of laurentia from this supercontinent culminating in a late cambrian orogeny at c 500 ma the mid proterozoic early palaeozoic tectonic development of western dronning maud land was significantly different to that observed in the transantarctic mountains and the c 500 ma event in particular is characterized by 1 a regional isotopic resetting event at c 470 ma 2 scarce coeval magmatism comprising only one major intrusion of alkaline affinity and volumetrically small s type granitic sheets derived from local anatexis of gneisses 3 structural deformation considerably less intense than during the preceding kibaran 1100 ma orogeny comprising relatively open to gentle folding 4 reactivation of thrusting initiated during the kibaran orogeny with associated metasomatism it is concluded that the effects of the late cambrian c 500 ma event are consistent with crustal thickening through large scale underplating rather than subduction related processes as seen in the ross orogeny of the transantarctic mountains it is also concluded that gondwana amalgamation occurred along suture lines not currently exposed in outcrop in dronning maud land these data neither contradict nor support the sweat hypothesis as currently argued

why do continents break up parallel to ancient orogenic belts the frequently observed parallelism between rifts and the pre existing orogenic fabric of continents suggests that the inherited tectonic fabric of the lithosphere influences the rupture of continents we propose that the existence of a pervasive fabric in the lithospheric mantle induces an anisotropie strength in the lithosphere that guides the propagation of continental rifts subcrustal mantle mechanical anisotropy is supported by i the anisotropie strength of olivine ii an ubiquitous tectonic fabric in exposed mantle rocks and iii measurements of seismic and electrical anisotropy during major episodes of continent rifting parallel to orogenic belts ocean opening through rifting and continent break up is frequently related to the occurrence ofhotspots there is howevcr a discrepancy between hot spots acting as pin point sources of heat and the linear extent of rifts over thou sands ofkilometres moreover rifts tend to parallel pre existing orogenic fab

tectonic segmentation of the northern antarctic peninsula discrete segments of the southeast pacific ocean crust were subducted beneath the antarctic peninsula in late cretaceous and cenozoic time the segment boundaries of the subducted ocean crust are reflected in the overlying continental crust by transverse megafractures these are usually obscured by contemporaneous magmatism but may be revealed by later fault movements the transverse fracture zones divide graham land and its offlying islands into segments that have different histories of magmatism uplift and erosion and postorogenic sedimentation metalliferous mineralization is controlled in part by the transverse fracture zones

anisotropy in kuril kamchatka subduction zone structure to constrain the orientation and extent of seismic velocity anisotropy in the kuril kamchatka subduction zone we have developed a technique that isolates anisotropy at shallow depths by differencing splitting observed in teleseismic shear wave phases olivine a axis orientations inferred from 29 ss s phase pairs and two local s phases vary between the major tectonic components of the trench back arc system although the ss paths do not uniquely constrain a single model of anisotropy a axes are consistent with finite strain patterns predicted by plate convergence and back arc spreading and shearing

an olivine fabric database an overview of upper mantle fabrics and seismic anisotropy we present a unique database of 110 olivine petrofabrics and their calculated seismic properties the samples come from a variety of the upper mantle geodynamic environments ophiolites subduction zones and kimberlites with a wide range of micro structures a phenomenological relationship is established between p and s wave seismic anisotropy and the degree of crystal alignment fabric strength seismic anisotropy increases rapidly at low fabric strength before reaching a near saturation level of 15 to 20 for p waves and 10 to 15 for s waves despite a large variation in the symmetry of fabric patterns the average seismic properties of the different fabric micro structural and geodynamic settings have similar anisotropies in both magnitude and symmetry hence it would seem possible to determine some measure of fabric strength from seismic anisotropy if the dimensions of the anisotropic region are known but not geodynamic environment or details of the petrofabric pattern a simple pattern of seismic anisotropy characterises the average sample of the database which has the following features the polarisation plane of the fastest s wave is parallel or sub parallel to the foliation plane the maximum shear wave splitting is parallel to the y structural direction in foliation plane and normal to the lineation the maximum of the p wave velocity is parallel to the high concentration of 100 axes which is sub parallel to the lineation the 100 orientation distribution has the greatest influence on the p wave seismic anisotropy the 100 and 001 orientation distributions have the greatest influence on the symmetry of s wave anisotropy although the magnitude of anisotropy is influenced by the distribution of all three principal axes although the database only contains olivine petrofabrics this statistical study clearly shows that seismic anisotropy can be used to deduce the orientation of the structural frame in the upper mantle 1998 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

shear wave splitting continental keels and patterns of mantle flow in this study we investigated the origin of seismic anisotropy in the mantle beneath north america in particular we evaluated whether shear wave splitting patterns in eastern north america are better explained by anisotropy caused by lithospheric deformation anisotropy due to mantle flow beneath the lithosphere or a combination of both we examined new measurements of shear wave splitting from the missouri to massachusetts broadband seismometer array moma the north american mantle anisotropy and discontinuity experiment nomad as well as splitting parameters from several previous studies we developed a simple finite difference model that approximates mantle flow around a complex three dimensional continental lithospheric keel to evaluate potential anisotropy from mantle flow beneath the lithosphere in eastern north america we compared shear wave splitting observations to predicted splitting parameters calculated using this mantle flow model our results indicate that a significant portion of observed shear wave splitting in eastern north america can be explained by mantle flow around the continental keel however shear wave splitting patterns in a few regions of eastern north america indicate that a component of lithospheric anisotropy must exist particularly in regions containing the largest keel thicknesses for eastern north america as well as for splitting observations in australia europe and south america we favor a model in which anisotropy is controlled by a combination of both lithospheric deformation and subcontinental mantle flow

interpretation of sks waves using samples from the subcontinental lithosphere abstract the seismic properties of five south african kimberlite nodules have been calculated from petrofabric measurements these garnet lherzolite and harzburgite composition nodules 56 80 olivine are known from previous studies to have originated at depths of 120 170 km in the subcontinental lithosphere their in situ seismic properties have been calculated by extrapolating the elastic constants to the appropriate temperature 900 1050 c and pressure 3 0 3 5 gpa conditions the average of the five samples has a maximum s wave anisotropy v s of 3 7 which is sufficiently high to explain previously reported teleseismic sks delay times t in continental shield areas of up to 1 7 s the biggest delay time is observed when the foliation is vertical the lineation horizontal and the fastest s wave polarized parallel to the lineation i e an orientation for transcurrent motion delay times of over 1 s can only be generated by this orientation a strong mantle crust mechanical coupling is suggested for such situations the potential use of seismic anisotropy as an indicator of strain in the lithosphere has been investigated using experimental and simulated fabric data for olivine the most abundant phase 70 in the upper mantle the v p and v s seismic anisotropy increases with fabric strength and finite strain recrystallization tends to reduce fabric strength and seismic anisotropy resulting in saturation values for experimental and simulated fabrics which correspond to approximately 50 60 strain or 8 9 v s for pure olivine aggregates a survey of 25 naturally deformed peridotites of oceanic origin suggests an average maximum s wave anisotropy for the olivine component of 9 or about 8 for a lherzolite or harzburgite rock composition when the orthopyroxene component is taken into account the ophiolite samples are twice as anisotropic as the kimberlite nodules if an average anisotropy value is representative of the lithosphere then the sks delay times represent variations in anisotropic layer thickness for delay times over 1 s as the orientation is constrained to be foliation vertical and lineation horizontal the magnitude of s wave anisotropy is less sensitive than v p to variations in olivine volume fraction in range 50 100 and to deformation or fabric intensity further suggesting that s wave anisotropy is particularly apt for the determination of the anisotropic lithosphere thickness for smaller delay times there is some trade off between structural orientation and thickness

joint interpretation of upper mantle anisotropy based on teleseismic p travel time delays and inversion of shear wave splitting parameters abstract we inverted shear wave splitting parameters and simultaneously analysed delays of teleseismic longitudinal waves to obtain a self consistent three dimensional 3 d image of the anisotropic upper mantle beneath the continents efficiency of the simultaneous 3 d analyses of p residual spheres and shear wave polarizations is demonstrated on data from two regions southern sweden and the western usa the anisotropic inferences of the subcrustal lithosphere are to a first approximation represented by homogeneous hexagonal or orthorhombic media with plunging symmetry axes

imaging the three dimensional crust of the korean peninsula by joint inversion of surface wave dispersion and teleseismic receiver functions abstract a detailed study of the 3d variation of shear wave velocities in thesouthern part of the korean peninsula is made by combining high frequency surface wave tomography results of cho et al 2006b with teleseismic p wave receiverfunctions at 80 locations on the peninsula receiver functions were derived fromhigh gain acceleration short period and broadband digital data streams of the koreameteorological administration kma and korean institute for geosciences andmineral resources kigam networks vertical cross sections trace the lateral vari ation in the depth to the moho the variation of low velocities near the surface andthe variable thickness of the transition from surface velocities to midcrustal veloci ties the derived crustal structure provides new insights on the evolution of thekorean crust introduction geophysics and seismology in particular provides in direct means for assessing the larger to local scale present day architecture of continental masses through remote sens ing bostock 1999 although eld geology has providedvast information on the upper crust mapping variations instructure in depth through geophysical investigation is aprincipal step in unraveling and understanding the evolutionof the continental lithosphere in an area whose genetic pro cess is relatively unknown such as the korean peninsula itis important to add geophysical constraints to reveal the con tinental evolution the korean peninsula fig 1 situated at the easternmargin of the eurasian continent is a tectonic assemblageof two phanerozoic mobile belts the imjingang belt and theokcheon fold belt three precambrian basement terrains nangrim gyeonggi and yeongnam massifs from north tosouth and one volcanoclastic basin that is gyeongsang ba sin reedmann and um 1975 cluzel

seismic anisotropy beneath the shumagin islands segment of the aleutian alaska subduction zone lithospheric strain and mantle flow in subduction zone back arcs reflect the fundamental dynamics of lithospheric subduction in this study we inferred possible strain geometries in the mantle beneath the eastern aleutians by mapping seismic anisotropy with shear wave splitting we analyzed s phases of local events recorded by the shumagin seismic network and obtained splitting parameters fast direction and splitting time t and their 95 confidence regions to avoid complexity from converted phases data were restricted to paths at incidence angles less than 32 and to events deeper than 50 km the s phases sample the forearc and back arc of the shumagin segment from 159 7 w to 163 8 w at depths up to 216 km in our data set of 84 local events 44 of 127 s phases yielded constrained splitting parameters with consistent fast directions that are approximately parallel to the volcanic arc roughly 60 the remaining 83 s phases produced null measurements and the fast directions inferred from these phase polarizations agree with the fast axis alignment in the constrained measurements splitting times vary from 0 1 to 0 35 s and show an overall increase with hypocentral depth observed splitting parameters are well matched by predicted values for olivine rich mantle wedge models with 1 sv anisotropy where the olivine b axis is arc orthogonal and the a axis is vertical no arc parallel strain or arcparallel no vertical strain these results are consistent with mantle wedge strain models in which arc normal compression is accompanied by arc parallel or vertical shearing or extension

antarctic tectonics constraints from an ers 1 satellite marine gravity field a high resolution gravity field of poorly charted and ice covered ocean near west antarctica from the ross sea east to the weddell sea has been derived with the use of satellite altimetry including ers 1 geodetic phase wave form data this gravity field reveals regional tectonic fabric such as gravity lineations which are the expression of fracture zones left by early 65 to 83 million years ago pacific antarctic sea floor spreading that separated the campbell plateau and new zealand continent from west antarctica these lineations constrain plate motion history and confirm the hypothesis that antarctica behaved as two distinct plates separated from each other by an extensional bellingshausen plate boundary active in the amundsen sea before about 61 million years ago

seismic anisotropy of oceanic upper mantle shear wave splitting methodologies and observations we develop methodologies to obtain accurate measurements of shear wave splitting and apply these techniques to examine the pattern of oceanic upper mantle anisotropy to obtain high quality estimates of receiver splitting at island stations we devise a stacking method that finds the optimum splitting parameters and 95 error region for teleseismic shear wave phases from a suite of earthquake events to obtain additional measurements in oceanic regions we develop techniques to measure splitting parameters and errors for ss phases that sample upper mantle anisotropy at their bounce points however we find the data are often of low resolution and anomalous characteristics are sometimes found that make splitting difficult to interpret ten second splitting of ss is observed across the banjo seismic array but we cannot unambiguously attribute this signal to mantle anisotropy at the bounce the receiver splitting methods are used to assess the adequacy of a two anisotropic layer model for the pacific region with fast polarization azimuth in the lithosphere oriented in the fossil spreading direction and in the asthenosphere oriented in the absolute plate motion direction this model has been proposed to explain surface wave data in the pacific ocean but our splitting results demonstrate that oceanic anisotropy patterns are more heterogeneous than would be predicted while the island splitting measurements could reflect the influence of individual hotspot upwellings hotspot effects do not appear to be universally dominant we propose that splitting observations alternatively indicate broad scale differences in the underlying character of oceanic upper mantle anisotropy associated with coherant patters of lithospheric structure and asthenospheric flow in particular splitting surface wave models and regional studies all support a model where lithospheric anisotropy throughout the south pacific has been erased or reoriented toward the absolute plate motion direction whereas more limited observations in the north pacific indicate that the fossil lithospheric signature appears to be preserved

geological evidence for the geographical pattern of mantle return flow and the driving mechanism of plate tectonics tectonic features at the earth s surface can be used to test models for mantle return flow and to determine the geographic pattern of this flow a model with shallow return flow and deep continental roots places the strongest constraints on the geographical pattern of return flow and predicts recognizable surface manifestations because of the progressive shrinkage of the pacific averaging 0 5 km2 yr over the last 180 m y this model predicts upper mantle outflow through the three gaps in the chain of continents rimming the pacific caribbean drake passage australian antarctic gap in this model upper mantle return flow streams originating at the western pacific trenches and at the java trench meet south of australia filling in behind this rapidly northward moving continent and providing an explanation for the negative bathymetric and gravity anomalies of the australian antarctic discordance the long continued tectonic movements toward the east that characterize the caribbean and the easternmost scotia sea may be produced by viscous coupling to the predicted pacific outflow through the gaps and the caribbean floor slopes in the predicted direction if mantle outflow does pass through the gaps in the pacific perimeter it must pass beneath three seismic zones central america lesser antilles scotia sea none of these seismic zones shows foci below 200 km mantle material flowing through the caribbean and drake passage gaps would supply the mid atlantic ridge while the java trench supplies the indian ocean ridges so that deep mantle upwellings need not be centered under spreading ridges and therefore are not required to move laterally to follow ridge migrations the analysis up to this point suggests that upper mantle return flow is a response to the motion of the continents the second part of the paper suggests a possible driving mechanism for the plate tectonic process which may explain why the continents move this hypothetical driving mechanism has four aspects 1 the lower mantle convects 2 this convection drives the continents by drag on their deep roots 3 return flow in the upper mantle provides a volumetric balance for the motion of the continental masses without passing under them and 4 oceanic plates are effectively decoupled from the asthenosphere and are driven largely by slab pull this mechanism accounts for the opening of the atlantic the ability of spreading ridges to stay on the midlines of oceans and the penetration of india into asia following their collision continental motions strongly imply lower mantle upwelling and divergence beneath the atlantic and southeast indian oceans and convergence and subsidence along the tethyan belt this picture disagrees with the concept derived from hot spot studies of an undeforming absolute reference framework at depth but weaknesses in current hot spot theory would make a rejection of the present model on this ground premature if the present model is generally correct a fairly simple pattern of lower mantle convection with as few as four cells may explain much of the tectonic complexity of the earth

lithospheric anisotropy beneath the pyrenees from shear wave splitting we investigate upper mantle anisotropy beneath the pyrenean range along three n s profiles across the mountain belt the results of a first profile that operated in 1993 in the central part of the belt have been presented elsewhere we present the results of two other profiles that ran in 1995 1996 and 1996 1997 in the eastern and western part of the belt respectively and propose an interpretation of the whole results teleseismic shear waves sks skks and pks are used to determine splitting parameters the fast polarization direction and the delay time t teleseismic shear wave splitting in the eastern pyrenees displays homogeneous values trending n100 e and t values in the range 1 1 to 1 5 s a station located in the southern massif central 100 km north of the range is characterized by different splitting parameters n70 e t 0 7 s in the western part of the belt anisotropy parameters are similar across the whole belt n110 e and t 1 3 to 1 5 s most of the measured delay times including those obtained in the central part of the range are above the global average of the sks splitting around 1 s at the belt scale is generally poorly correlated with recent estimations of the absolute plate motion which predicts a fast direction ranging between n50 e and n80 e instead the orientation of n100 e is parallel to the trend of the pyrenean belt but also to hercynian preexisting structures this parallelism supports an anisotropy primarily related to frozen or active lithospheric structures we show that a signature related to the pyrenean orogeny is likely for the stations located in the internal domains of the belt by contrast the anisotropy measured at the stations located on the external parts of the belt could reflect a pre pyrenean hercynian deformation we suggest that a late hercynian strike slip deformation is responsible for this frozen upper mantle anisotropy and that the pyrenean tectonic fabric developped parallel to this preexisting fabric finally no particularly strong splitting is related to the north pyrenean fault commonly believed to represent the plate boundary between iberia and eurasia

trench parallel flow in the southern ryukyu subduction system effects of progressive rifting of the overriding plate 1 the okinawa trough in the ryukyu subduction system is one of a few actively extending back arc basins within the continental lithosphere recent shear wave splitting measurements show variable fast directions along the trough suggesting a complex three dimensional mantle flow field in this study we use numerical subduction models to demonstrate that the thickness variations of the continental lithosphere bounding the edge of a subduction zone can result in complicated mantle circulation and regional dynamics the model results for the southern ryukyu show a combination of two effects along the okinawa trough the increasing thickness of the overriding eurasian plate toward taiwan due to a gradually diminishing rifting induces pressure gradients that drive trench parallel flow to the edge in the shallow portion of the mantle wedge and the thick eurasian lithosphere to the west effectively blocks and diverts this along arc flow and limits the toroidal flow around the slab edge below it the toroidal flow thus enters the mantle wedge at depths of more than about 100 km opposite in direction with and largely below the along arc flow these combined geometry effects of the eurasian lithosphere create an intricate three dimensional flow structure at the southern edge of the ryukyu subduction zone model predictions for lattice preferred orientations of olivine aggregates show rotation patterns that agree with the observed shear wave splitting patterns this three dimensional scenario echoes the geochemical and seismological evidence worldwide that indicates complex depth varying mantle circulations in subduction systems

shear wave anisotropy in the mariana subduction zone to determine the location strength and orientation of seismic anisotropy in the mariana subduction zone beneath guam we evaluated shear wave splitting in local s regional s and scs and teleseismic core phases such as sks recorded at station gumo fast directions from the local s phases have an average azimuth of 45 and splitting times range from 0 1 s to 0 4 s for local s phases from events within the southeastern half of the subducting slab splitting parameters manifest minimal frequency dependence in both fast direction and splitting time however for the remaining local s phases in the data set fast directions vary with frequency content no well constrained splitting parameters were obtained for the regional and teleseismic phases but the particle motions of these unsplit phases are consistent with an average anisotropic fast direction of 45 anisotropy due solely to olivine oriented by slab entrained flow in the mantle wedge would produce local s fast directions at 66 and anisotropy due solely to fossil seafloor spreading in the subducting slab would yield fast directions at 20 to 30 neither of these predictions is consistent with the observed fast directions however the observed splitting including the frequency dependent fast directions can be explained by models containing anisotropy in both the slab and wedge and possibly although not necessarily anisotropy due to recent extension in the overriding philippine sea plate

intrinsic and scattering seismic wave attenuation in the canary islands the canary islands volcanic complex is studied in terms of coda wave attenuation a multiple lapse time window method based on the hypothesis of multiple isotropic scattering with uniform distribution of scatterers is applied to the available seismic data in order to obtain the intrinsic absorption qi 1 and the scattering attenuation qs 1 in the canarian lithosphere the analysis is performed for two hypocentral distance ranges from 0 to 80 km and from 0 to 140 km results show that in both cases and for all the studied frequency bands 1 2 2 4 6 8 and 8 10 hz intrinsic absorption dominates the low albedos found in the region indicate the low degree of heterogeneity in the canarian lithosphere at the scale length of the studied frequencies on the other hand the coda attenuation qc 1 calculated on the basis of the single scattering theory gives values near qi 1 for low frequencies and near the total attenuation qt 1 for high frequencies the degree of frequency dependence of the attenuation parameters is strong in all cases a correlation of the observed attenuation parameters with the geological evidence for a hotspot type archipelago and with other geophysical studies is suggested

crustal velocity structure across the southern korean peninsula from seismic refraction survey 1 the first crustal scale controlled source seismic refraction experiment in the southern korean peninsula kcrust2002 was carried out along a 300 km long profile across this peninsula in december 2002 iterative processing and modeling produced a laterally varying layered crustal velocity model the crust is thickest 34 km below the okcheon fold belt in the middle of the transect and thinnest 28 km at the eastern end where the cretaceous gyeongsang basin is characterized by 5 km of low velocity material that constitutes the upper crust the p velocities in upper and lower crust range from 5 4 to 6 0 km s and from 6 4 to 6 7 km s respectively the average crustal poisson s ratio is found to be 0 25 0 27 vp vs 1 73 1 78 along the profile a mid crustal velocity discontinuity is recognized in the northwestern part of the transect the underlying mantle has velocities in the range of 7 9 8 1 km s

crustal in south korea using the source pair receiver pair method graphic 1 has been studied extensively because its regional variations reflect geological structure values around 1 hz show close correlation with tectonic seismicity we analyze graphic 2 in south korea by applying the source pair receiver pair sprp method to 39 korean earthquakes and 32 far regional earthquakes we obtain nearly 1500 source receiver pairs with the combined difference of epicentral distance d ranging from 16 to 657 km seismograms are filtered by using an eight pole bandpass butterworth filter with five center frequencies 0 375 0 75 1 5 3 and 6 hz the obtained graphic 3 for all frequencies are less than 0 002 which is a reasonable value for a seismically inactive region in spite of the short range of d the results of the sprp method show reliable values especially at 1 5 and 3 hz 1 embed inline graphic 2 gif 2 embed inline graphic 3 gif 3 embed inline graphic 4 gif

new maps of the ice thickness and subglacial topography in dronning maud land antarctica determined by means of airborne radio echo sounding since the austral summer 1994 95 the alfred wegener institute awi hascarried out airborne radio echo sounding measurements res in antarctica withits newly designed res system since 1995 96 an ongoing presite survey foran ice coring drill site in dronning maud land dml has been carried out this survey is part of the epica programme european project for ice coring inantarctica it covers an area of 948000 km2 with more than 49500 km ofairborne res obtained from more than 200 hours of flight operation flown from1994 1997 within this paper first results of the airborne res survey will begraphically summarized as newly derived maps of the ice thickness and thesubglacial topography as well as a 3d view of surface and subglacial bed andoutcrop topography revealing a total icevolume of 1 48 million km3

mantle flow in the south sandwich subduction environment from source side shear wave splitting 1 the occurrence of seismic anisotropy in the earth s upper mantle is a global phenomenon related to subcrustal deformation and flow processes the shear wave splitting analysis method has led to a global set of anisotropy maps mainly derived from receiver side analysis remote places with few seismometers deployed remain unexamined source side splitting analysis allows mapping of mantle fabrics in these regions here we investigate seismic anisotropy in the south sandwich islands subduction environment core reflected scs waves recorded at the neumayer seismograph network are corrected for well constrained receiver anisotropy and then analysed for source anisotropy sub slab mantle minerals are aligned horizontally almost parallel to the trench indicating a westward flow around the subducting slab this is consistent with a model of horizontal mantle flow due to slab rollback that was previously inferred from marine and geochemical studies in the back arc region

shear wave splitting around the northern atlantic frozen pangaean lithospheric anisotropy abstract although the number of teleseismic shear wave splitting measurements has considerably increased world wide during the last decade there is no consensus on a unique and universal interpretation of these data splitting might primarily originate in the lithospheric and or asthenospheric mantle but the technique has no vertical resolution and therefore leaves this question of anisotropy location unresolved generally the consequences of the two possibilities are used to infer which is more likely if splitting occurs in the lithosphere the splitting parameters the orientation of the fast split shear wave o and the delay time t should be related to frozen or active deformation on the other hand if the splitting occurs in the asthenosphere the observed splitting parameters should be related to the present day flow induced by the differential motion between the tectonic plates and the underlying mantle the aim of this paper is to test these hypotheses against shear wave splitting observations from western europe and the eastern u s indeed except in a few places splitting on either side of the atlantic on hercynian caledonian or grenvillian structures do not appear to have been deeply and pervasively affected by the opening of this ocean this provides us the opportunity to place these results in the pangaean reference frame of the hercynian caledonian belt before the opening of the atlantic in many places the close parallelism between lithospheric structure and the absolute plate motion apm impedes a reliable identification of the origin of the anisotropy especially an asthenospheric flow channelled around the deeply rooted north american craton may be compatible with the large scale anisotropy pattern in the eastern u s despite this ambiguity fast polarization directions o observed on or near some major lithospheric structures correlate better with the trend of the local tectonic structures than with the expected asthenospheric flow therefore we suggest that these lithospheric structures developed before the opening of the atlantic remain frozen since hercynian caledonian or grenvillian times and are responsible for the observed splitting at these places

the falkland islands a key element in gondwana paleogeography stratigraphic and sedimentological fieldwork on the falkland islands confirms that they were originally part of south africa east and west falkland have contrasting geological and deformation histories and are separated by the falkland sound fault which marks a significant deformation edge to the cape fold belt the degree of structural deformation and metamorphism in west falkland is substantially less than that of east falkland adjustments to differential shortening between the two islands being reflected by structures developed along the falkland sound fault prior to fragmentation of gondwana the falkland platform and maurice ewing bank were positioned in the natal valley adjacent to the east coast of south africa this predrift reconstruction shows that the falkland islands have subsequently been rotated by 180 relative to south africa and complements recent paleomagnetic data there was a complete overlap of the maurice ewing bank and falkland platform to the exclusion of the falkland plateau basin which is a small oceanic basin formed during the jurassic fragmentation of gondwana extension in this basin was accommodated by movements along the aghulas falkland fracture zone and the gastre fault system predrift restoration of these faults shows that patagonia was positioned closer to both africa and antarctica the falkland plateau basin was an integral component of the west gondwana jurassic microplate system and provides an invaluable insight into the evolution of its western margin at some time prior to the main opening of the south atlantic the falkland platform was rotated clockwise by 120 against the agulhas falkland fracture zone such that the falkland islands were translated some 300 km to the south the driving force for this rotation is not known but could possibly have been initiated by periodic stress buildups in the falkland plateau basin as the gastre fault system within continental crust became unable to accommodate the continuous dextral shear in the agulhas falkland fracture zone the falkland islands represent an outboard extension of the eastern cape and are significant for understanding the paleogeography of both the cape and karoo supergroups east falkland is closely similar to south africa in its geology while west falkland shows significant contrasts with both the devonian and permian successions being more proximal in character but still demonstrate the eastward continuation of the cape and karoo basins

shear wave splitting near guam abstract polarities of shear waves from intermediate focus events underneath guam are studied for records from a group of ten events shear wave splitting with faster arriving e w components are observed this event group occurred within or above one geographic portion of the wadati benioff zone with depths ranging between 57 and 148 km ray tracing calculations were performed for 3 d and 1 d velocity models constructed for the region to determine expected s wave polarities and ray patterns as well as their sensitivities to variations in velocity structure these were used to infer the probable existence of intrinsic anisotropy at depth and to determine the location and magnitude of anisotropy which can explain the observed shear wave splitting the most probable location of the anisotropy is beneath the crust and above or partially within the subducting slab assuming a maximum depth range of 10 120 km for the location of the anisotropy its amount is about 1 which may be viewed as a lower bound plausible causes of the anisotropy include mantle flow and thin sheet like channels filled with lava or water vapor migrating upward from the subducting slab

sks splitting beneath continental rift zones we present measurements of sks splitting at 28 digital seismic stations and 35 analog stations in the baikal rift zone siberia and adjacent areas and at 17 stations in the east african rift in kenya and compare them with previous measurements from the rio grande rift of north america fast directions in the inner region of the baikal rift zone are distributed in two orthogonal directions ne and nw approximately parallel and perpendicular to the ne strike of the rift in the adjacent siberian platform and northern mongolian fold belt only the rift orthogonal fast direction is observed in southcentral mongolia the dominant fast direction changes to rift parallel again although a small number of measurements are still rift orthogonal for the axial zones of the east african and rio grande rifts fast directions are oriented on average nne that is rotated clockwise from the n s trending rift all three rifts are underlain by low velocity upper mantle as determined from teleseismic tomography rift related mantle flow provides a plausible interpretation for the rift orthogonal fast directions the rift parallel fast directions near the rift axes can be interpreted by oriented magmatic cracks in the mantle or small scale mantle convection with rift parallel flow the agreement between stress estimates and corresponding crack orientations lends some weight to the suggestion that the rift parallel fast directions are caused by oriented magmatic cracks

mantle flow in subduction systems the mantle wedge flow field and implications for wedge processes 1 the mantle wedge above subducting slabs is associated with many important processes including the transport of melt and volatiles our understanding of mantle wedge dynamics is incomplete as the mantle flow field above subducting slabs remains poorly understood because seismic anisotropy is a consequence of deformation measurements of shear wave splitting can constrain the geometry of mantle flow in order to identify processes that make first order contributions to the pattern of wedge flow we have compiled a data set of local s splitting measurements from mantle wedges worldwide there is a large amount of variability in splitting parameters with average delay times ranging from 0 1 to 0 3 s up to 1 0 1 5 s and large variations in fast directions we tested for relationships between splitting parameters and a variety of parameters related to subduction processes we also explicitly tested the predictions made by 10 different models that have been proposed to explain splitting patterns in the mantle wedge we find that no simple model can explain all of the trends observed in the global data set mantle wedge flow is likely controlled by a combination of downdip motion of the slab trench migration ambient mantle flow small scale convection proximity to slab edges and slab morphology with the relative contributions of these in any given subduction system controlled by the subduction kinematics and mantle rheology there is also a likely contribution from b type olivine and or serpentinite fabric in many subduction zones governed by the local thermal structure and volatile distribution

earthquakes in korea from 1905 to 1945 from 1905 to 1945 earthquakes occurring in and in the vicinity of the korean peninsula were monitored by the meteorological observatory of the government general of tyosen with one to six seismological stations seismological data of 323 earthquakes of the meteorological observatory during the period are analyzed in this study epicenters of earthquakes are estimated by reports in bulletins of the meterological observatory epicenters and magnitudes of events that occurred from 1926 to 1943 were determined previously based on the crustal structures of the peninsula and japanese islands and tsuboi9s formula respectively lee and jung 1980 kim 1980 the b value determined from these events turned out to be about 0 8 which is between those values for earthquakes of the japanese islands and china the epicenter distribution of earthquakes during the period indicates rather diffuse seismicity over the peninsula not well related to major faults and much lower seismicity in the northeastern part of the peninsula compared with other regions previous studies of historical seismicity of the korean peninsula showed that epicenters of destructive large earthquakes are well associated with major faults in the peninsula formed during mesozoic tectonic activities lee 1987 and lower seismicity in the northeastern part of the peninsula the seismic wave energy release during the period was rather steady except for the period 1936 1938 during which the 1936 m 5 1 ssanggyesa earthquake the largest event during the period occurred in the southern part of the peninsula the source mechanism of the ssanggyesa earthquake indicates a thrust fault with a considerable strike slip component shimazaki 1984 one of the nodal planes trending north northeast coincides with the strikes of adjacent faults reliable source mechanisms of earthquakes in the vicinity of the korean peninsula indicate that the korean peninsula is subject to compressive stresses parallel to the great circles from the himalayas to the japan trench it appears that the earthquakes in the korean peninsula occur along the faults formed during the mesozoic by stresses transmitting from plate boundaries between the eurasian plate and the indian plate along the himalayas in the southeast and the pacific and philippine plates along the japan and ryuku trenches in the east respectively the source mechanisms of large earthquakes in the peninsula are likely to be thrust faults with considerable strike slip components in the trends of faults

global patterns of azimuthal anisotropy and deformations in the continental mantle summary we present a summary of measurements of azimuthal anisotropy in the continental mantle based on the sks technique and performed mostly with the active participation of the authors the directions of polarization of the fast quasi shear wave and the time delays between the quasi shear waves are obtained at nearly 70 locations in all continents except antarctica these data are interpreted in terms of lattice preferred orientation of olivine which is caused by deformations in the mantle the depth interval responsible for anisotropy is unknown but the data suggest that it may reach at least 300 km the fast directions in sks do not show clear correlation with the fast directions of the teleseismic p at the same seismograph stations in the regions of present day convergence the fast direction of anisotropy usually aligns with the plate boundary this correlation implies that the direction of shortening is the same in the crust and the upper mantle in the regions of rifting the inferred direction of mantle flow usually aligns with the direction of extension in the crust outside the regions of recent tectonic activity we most likely observe a combined effect of frozen anisotropy in the subcrustal lithosphere and of recently formed anisotropy in the asthenosphere on a global scale in these regions there is a positive correlation between the absolute plate velocity directions and the fast directions of anisotropy the correlation is especially strong in central and eastern parts of north america a clear absence of any evidence of large scale azimuthal anisotropy in the data of long range refraction profiling for the upper 100 km of the mantle of that region implies that the effect in sks is generated mainly at greater depths in the asthenosphere orientation of olivine at these depths reflects recent and present day flow in the mantle rather than processes of a distant geologic past

monte carlo simulation of seismogram envelopes in scattering media the analysis of the seismogram coda envelopes of local and regional earthquakes is one of the most effective strategies for investigating the heterogeneous lithospheric structure characterized by the seismic scattering and attenuation in order to synthesize the coda envelope we introduce a numerical scheme called the direct simulation monte carlo method which has been used in the field of the kinetic theory of gases because of the simplicity of the algorithm the method has several advantages over previous methods in terms of the flexibility of the numerical calculation to incorporate various factors required to construct realistic seismogram envelopes on the basis of coda envelope simulations including multiple scattering we show that an increase of seismic velocity with depth severely affects the shape of the coda envelope the effects of ray bending due to the velocity increase at the moho and the reflection at the free surface are clearly found in the synthesized envelope for a shallow earthquake our simulation demonstrates that the amplitude of the envelope is magnified by stagnation of seismic energy at shallow depths due to the positive velocity gradient with depth because of this effect for an a priori assumption of a homogeneous velocity model the measurement of the scattering coefficient by conventional methods may be overestimated

azimuthal anisotropy in the lithosphere from observations of long period s waves summary the paper gives a detailed description of the technique for measuring azimuthal anisotropy which was suggested earlier by vinnik kosarev makeyeva 1984 and used by kind et ai 1985 the technique is based on the observations of long period converted phases like sks additionally we describe a generalization of this approach which makes use of long period s waves of arbitrary polarization both modifications were applied to records of the grf array in southern germany the results of this analysis if combined with the data on p velocities bamford 1977 suggest that the direction of the fast velocity in the lithosphere of the region varies with depth

residence time of diffuse waves in the crust as a physical interpretation of coda q application to seismograms recorded in mexico summary we consider a simple model for elastic wave propagation in the earth s litho sphere consisting of a heterogeneous and scattering crust overlying a homogeneous mantle that is we neglect backscattering from the upper mantle this rough condition is not strictly valid everywhere but this model allows us to investigate the effects of variations of diffracting properties between crust and mantle on the coda decay the free parameters describing the wave propagation are the mean free path of the waves and the intrinsic absorption in the crust in the framework of the radiative transfer theory we treat accurately jumps in s wave speed and the mean free path at the moho without intrinsic absorption this configuration yields a synthetic coda decay 1 texp 2 ft qc a form similar to that proposed by aki chouet 1975 to parametrize the observations the exponential decay in our purely elastic model is due to the partial leakage of diffuse energy into the mantle in order to test the applicability of our model we have determined the coda q parameter qc in the 1 15 hz frequency band from data recorded at four stations in mexico in the low frequency regime around 1 hz we suggest that the energy leakage significantly affects coda q whilst at higher frequencies around 10 hz the anelastic attenuation dominates a weak intrinsic absorption expressed by a frequency independent parameter qi of about 1000 accounts satisfactorily for the observed qc values in the whole frequency range our very simple model has only two free parameters and offers an attractive alternative physical interpretation of coda q in mexico this model is sufficient to interpret the coda observations according to our model in regions where the mean free path is much larger than the crustal thickness weakly heterogeneous crust the leakage effect should be small and the observed qc will mainly be due to the intrinsic absorption on the other hand when the mean free path is of the order of the crustal thickness strongly heterogeneous crust we predict a strong sensitivity of the decay rate of the coda to the crustal thickness this dependence may be important for the interpretation of the regional variations of coda q we propose introducing a new parameter d the residence time of diffuse energy in the crust which is physically more meaningful than a quality factor to quantify the leakage effect

present day strain field on the south american slab underneath the sandwich plate southern atlantic ocean a kinematic model this work analyses the present day principal strain orientation on the downgoing slab of the south america plate sam beneath the sandwich plate sand the strain regime was deduced from the study of 331 earthquake focal mechanism solutions examined by fault population analysis methods in the slab the maximum horizontal shortening direction ey rotates in trend in a clockwise direction from ne in the north to se in the south based on this rotation three different areas were defined according to the prevailing focal mechanism type 1 the north zone with ey oriented n0588e and reverse and strike slip focal mechanisms 2 the central zone with only reverse focal mechanisms and ey striking n0808e and 3 the south zone with ey oriented n1068e and reverse and strike slip focal mechanisms the strain field in the north zone of the sand involves decoupling of the slab at approximately 70 km depth in contrast the south zone edge slab exhibits no decoupling and it exhibits different geometry hook like shaped from the north zone finally we define the dextral strike slip component acting at the south sandwich fracture zone ssfz according to focal mechanism solutions and the regional tectonic configuration the geometry and kinematics of a plate tectonic boundary can be defined using geophysical and tectonic data such as earthquake focal locations and focal mechanism characteristics earthquake distribution shows the approximate position of the tectonic boundary if it constitutes a single line e g bird 2003 the orientations of the principal strain axis can be deduced from the focal mechanism solutions of earthquakes occurring on the plate boundary e g capote et al 1991 giner robles et al 2003a this study analysed 331 earthquake focal mechanism solutions located within the south sandwich region 2005 harvard catalogue hcmt fault population analysis methods have been applied to these focal mechanisms in order to establish principal strain orientations their spatial locations allow definition of the three dimensional 3 d variations of the strain field within the slab the results from the strain field and stress tensors are discussed according to the regional tectonic setting and with variations of the subduction style along the slab these results are influenced by the tectonic context two triple junctions near the south slab edge fft and ffr and one in the north edge frt fig 1 processes and features detected at the underthrusting lithosphere are different age of the slab edges at the north and south eagles et al 2005 lithosphere warming and thermal anomalies cruciani et al 2005 anomalous mantle inflow in both areas has been also suggested livermore et al 1997 leat et al 2004

mantle anisotropy beneath northwest pacific subduction zones to assess the location strength and orientation of seismic anisotropy in the southern kuril japan and izu bonin subduction zones we analyzed shear wave splitting in local s phases and teleseismic sks phases fast directions from these phases are roughly parallel to the direction of absolute pacific plate motion wnw in izu bonin roughly parallel to the strike of the trench nne in central honshu and roughly n in the southern kuril back arc in the vicinity of sakhalin island assuming that the orientation and strength of anisotropy does not vary with depth modeling of splitting times from local s and teleseismic phases recorded at sakhalin island requires that the maximum depth of anisotropy lies between 480 km and 950 km in contrast splitting times for local s phases from events in izu bonin rule out anisotropy in the transition zone all the data are consistent with a model in which the lower transition zone 520 660 km and lower mantle are largely isotropic and in which anisotropy occurs intermittently in the upper transition zone 410 520 km possibly due to preferred orientation of spinel assuming that splitting in the upper mantle is produced by preferred orientation of olivine the observed fast directions indicate that the geometry of back arc strain varies systematically between subduction zones the relationship of fast directions and plate motions suggests that the subducting slab exerts significant control on back arc flow but that flow correlated with upper plate deformation must also exist

a scattering model to explain seismic q observations in the lithosphere between 1 and 30 hz observations of lithospheric q for shear waves in the range 1 30 hz reported in the literature are examined using a scattering model consisting of randomly distributed spheres for the single scattering approximation i have assumed 1 q 1 q sub i gv omega where q sub i is the intrinsic q due to anelasticity v is the velocity of shear waves omega is angular frequency and g is the turbidity g is taken as a constant in this paper since g integral n a sigmada where n a da is the number of scattering spheres of radius a unit volume and sigma is the scattering cross section for a sphere this suggests that geometrical scattering dominates this will be true for ka 1 where k is wavenumber based on this criterion and the observation that q is large i e g small at a frequency of 0 05 hz a is of the order of magnitude 1 10 km fits of observations of shear wave q from japan and central asia indicate that q sub i 2000 500 for the lithosphere of both regions g 0 01 km for the japan observations and g 0 005 km sup 1 for central asia

the separation of intrinsic and scattering seismic attenuation in south korea abstract for the separation of intrinsic and scattering attenuation in south korea coda observations represented by the multiple lapse time windows method were numerically simulated using the direct simulation monte carlo method the simulation showed that the depth dependent velocity model separated by crust and mantle fit better than the uniform velocity model under a uniform attenuation assumption the and total in south korea represent the lowest values among current global measurements these low attenuation values can be explained by the inactive seismicity of south korea corresponding to those of the seismically stable area such as a shield

scotia sea regional tectonic evolution implications for mantle flow and palaeocirculation abstract the scotia sea and surrounding scotia arc have evolved over the past 40 ma by extension behind an east migrating subduction zone at the boundary between the south american sam and antarctic ant plates the considerable data set now available regional geology and geophysics earthquake seismology satellite altimetry global plate analyses suggest why east migrating subduction began what has been the driving force that has sustained it and what other processes have controlled the mode of back arc extension in the scotia sea a suite of six reconstructions has been developed based on this data set the reconstruction to 40 ma creates a compact cuspate continental connection between south america and the antarctic peninsula at the subducting pacific margin with fragments now dispersed around the scotia arc occupying positions within it compatible with their known geology the driving force has been subduction of south american ocean floor which began as a result of southward migration of the pole of south american antarctic plate rotation and a key modulator of back arc extension has been collision of ridge crest sections of the south american antarctic plate boundary with the east advancing trench cenozoic regional tectonic evolution has two other likely consequences which greatly increase its importance firstly this region saw the tectonic disruption of the final barrier to complete circum antarctic deep water flow that may have had a profound effect on palaeoclimate secondly it is possible that the rapid roll back of the hinge of subduction is related to shallow eastward flow in the sub lithospheric mantle both of these consequences are explored the reconstructions show that rapid roll back of the subduction hinge averaging 50 mm a over the last 40 ma with respect to the south american plate has been a feature of all of scotia sea evolution and provide a history of motion of several oceanic microplates most of which are now welded together within the scotia sea this will guide the location of seismometers and or dredge hauls to test the hypothesis of shallow mantle flow and help interpret the results the reconstructions also allow an assessment of the creation of deep water pathways that would have permitted the development of the present day antarctic circumpolar current acc an early miocene onset within the period 22 17 ma seems likely for the acc depending on the structure and palaeo elevation of davis bank and aurora bank sections of the north scotia ridge however the study shows there was a delay of one or more million years between initial provision of a deep water pathway and the major mid miocene change in global climate involving the general level of antarctic glaciation that may have been related if these changes were related then the delay suggests that other factors possibly rough elevated ocean floor but also non tectonic factors such as atmospheric co2 were important in determining palaeoclimate

crustal diapirism in bransfield strait west antarctica evidence for distributed extension in marginal basin formation new multichannel seismic data from bransfield strait west antarctica image complex fan shaped faulting patterns along the antarctic peninsula margin although a neovolcanic zone running along the strait9s axis has been presumed to be a nascent spreading center and the primary focus for extension the fan shaped faulting pattern can be interpreted instead as evidence for intracrustal diapirism suggesting separate diffuse zones of extension further more the diapiric trend 5 divergent from that of the neovolcanic zone supports temporal and spatial evolution of stress perhaps in response to complex plate interactions to the northeast

seismic anisotropy beneath the continents probing the depths of geology seismic anisotropy beneath continents is analyzed from shear wave splitting recorded at more than 300 continental seismic stations anisotropy is found to be a ubiquitous property that is due to mantle deformation from past and present orogenic activity the observed coherence with crustal deformation implies that the mantle plays a major if not dominant role in orogenies no evidence is found for a continental asthenospheric decoupling zone suggesting that continents are coupled to general mantle circulation

miocene fish faunas from the northwestern amazonia basin colombia peru brazil with evidence of marine incursions new evidence indicates marine influences during the miocene in the northwestern amazonia basin this is the first major survey of the ichthyofauna from this area in the miocene fossil fish remains from taxa such as the dasyatoidea myliobatoidea characiformes siluriformes and sciaenidae are found conspicuous finds were two pharyngeal teeth of stephanodus minimus a species that so far had only ever been found in late cretaceous sediments the fish remains of freshwater brackish and marine taxa are deposited together throughout the area this is thought to be related to marine influences during the miocene these finds agree with earlier studies that suggest episodic marine influences which most likely lasted up to the late miocene and disagree with studies that suggest a connection between the atlantic and the caribbean sea over the south american continent the ichthyofaunas also indicate a warm climate as well as shallow and possibly torrential waters c 1998 elsevier science b v all rights reserved