ava analysis reveals in situ sediment diagenesis at the costa rican decollement complete sediment subduction at the costa rica subduction zone makes this convergent margin an ideal place to investigate the effects of tectonic deformation in situ we present a seismic reflection study along a line located 3 km landward of the middle american trench and oriented parallel to the strike of the decollement the ocean bottom hydrophone obh seismic data include large offsets and incidence angles at the reflectors we derive the p and s waves velocity distribution below the decollement using a p wave analysis of amplitude with reflection angle the investigation shows that there are unexpected large lateral velocity variations at a scale of only a few 100 m the shear wave velocity in the uppermost subducted sediment varies between 300 and 700 m s while the variation of the compressional wave velocity is in a range of 1700 to 2000 m s the variation of the vp vs ratio between 2 8 and 5 2 can only be explained by variations of the pore fluid pressure the modelled velocities correspond to a normalised pore fluid pressure ratio in the range between 0 02 and 0 93 the most reasonable explanation for these observations is the localised presence of fluids which are released during diagenesis by smectite to illite transformation during this process which takes place in three discrete steps the interlayer water of the smectite is added to the pore fluid and the permeability of the sediment is decreased both effects lead to the formation of small overpressured cells

oceanic influence on the baiu frontal zone in the east china sea a high resolution transect of atmospheric soundings across the kuroshio current in the east china sea was conducted onboard a ship in june 2012 with the objective of analyzing the influence of the complex sea surface temperature sst distribution on the baiu frontal zone bfz expendable bathythermograph castings and continuous surface meteorological observations were also examined two distinct mesoscale atmospheric fronts characterized by changes of wind direction in the lower troposphere and surface air temperature were found in the bfz one northern atmospheric front was observed around the sst front in relation to a warm water tongue extending from the kuroshio a high sst region around the northern atmospheric front enhances unstable near surface stratification and intensifies turbulent heat flux they help modify the marine atmospheric boundary layer in the bfz the other southern atmospheric front was at the southern end of the bfz intense evaporation over the kuroshio and moisture transport by southerly winds were important in forming the conditionally unstable air masses in the lower troposphere of the bfz

aspherical structure of the core mantle boundary from pkp travel times maps of aspherical structure in the vicinity of the core mantle boundary have been constructed from a tomographic analysis of p df and p ab travel times in the distance range 150 180 these maps reveal long wavelength features not previously detected by mantle tomography the peak to peak amplitude of these features is on the order of 1 s in vertical travel time too large to be explained by conventional thermal boundary layer models or dynamically supported topography on the core mantle boundary we hypothesize the existence of one or more chemical boundary layers whose large scale accumulations on the surface of the core may in some ways be analogous to continents at the earth s surface

global anisotropy in the upper mantle inferred from the regionalization of phase velocities a data set of 2600 paths for rayleigh waves and 2170 paths for love waves was selected in order to resolve azimuthal anisotropy of surface waves in the period range 70 250 s the epicenters were chosen so that the paths provide uniform spatial and azimuthal coverage of earth a synthetic seismogram is computed for each path and compared to the observed seismogram in order to infer the phase velocity along each path to process such a large data set a new tomographic technique is designed a good correlation is found with surface tectonics in the whole period range for love waves and at shorter periods for rayleigh waves the directions of maximum velocities are also well correlated with plate tectonics motions for the 2 azimuthal term of rayleigh waves when the power spectrum of heterogeneities is computed it is found that for love waves the even orders are usually larger than the odd orders for rayleigh waves the degrees 2 and 6 dominate only at long periods suggesting a deep origin for these components

lateral heterogeneity and azimuthal anisotropy of the upper mantle love and rayleigh waves 100 250 s the lateral heterogeneity and apparent anisotropy of the upper mantle are studied by measuring rayleigh and love wave phase velocities in the period range 100 250 s spherical harmonic descriptions of the lateral heterogeneity are obtained for order and degree up to 1 m 10 slow regions are evident at the east pacific rise northeast africa tibet tasman sea southwestern north america and triple junctions in the northern atlantic and indian oceans fast regions occur in australia western pacific and the southern atlantic these features are also found by a completely different analysis based on the backus gilbert method the backus gilbert method also shows that the obtained phase velocities are averaged values within an area of about 2000 km radius and the errors are about 1 of the phase velocity in the zeroth order spherically symmetric earth inversion for azimuthal dependence shows that for low angular order the fast phase velocity directions seem to correlate well with the plate motion vectors however resolution analysis by the backus gilbert method shows that the current data do not have enough resolution for everywhere on the globe only a few regions currently have adequate azimuthal coverage thus confirmation of the above correlation requires a more complete data set

the backus gilbert approach to the three dimensional structure in the upper mantle i lateral variation of surface wave phase velocity with its error and resolution summary the backus gilbert method is applied to obtain the phase velocity variations on a sphere from the measured phase velocity narrow peak kernels with radii of about 2000 km are obtained for almost everywhere on the sphere the phase velocity results are thus interpreted as an average within such regions the most trouble comes from the antipodal peak in the resolution kernel this is evaluated as contamination and is incorporated in the error estimation the total error which is a root mean square of contamination from the antipodal peak and statistical error estimated from the data covariance matrix is about 1 per cent of the phase velocity in the average earth model which is the preliminary reference earth model prem however there is about a factor of 2 variation of errors on the sphere maximum variations of phase velocity are about 3 4 per cent of the phase velocity in the average earth model and thus there still remain anomalies which exceed estimated errors the estimated errors correspond to one standard deviation under the assumptions of uncorrelated gaussian distribution for high confidence interval they show that statistically significant anomalies are scarce for the current data set generally love wave phase velocity maps show more resolved features than rayleigh wave maps and we can see in high confidence maps fast velocities in old oceans and old continents and slow velocities in tectonically active regions like the east pacific rise and various back arc regions

the empirical age depth relation and depth anomalies in the pacific ocean basin this paper presents a new age depth relation and a comprehensive depth anomaly map for the pacific ocean age depth and sediment thickness were averaged for each 1 1 area bathymetry was corrected for isostatic effects due to sediment and water load and for the variation of sound velocity in water seafloor existing at extreme distance from hot spot tracks is found to be anomalously deep hot spots were treated as thermal anomalies and data within 800 km of them were eliminated from further analysis an age depth equation was determined by fitting a least squares line to the remaining data the resulting depth versus age distribution confirms the linear dependence of depth on age up to 80 ma all older seafloor is within 800 km of hot spots or hot spot tracks and is shallower than predicted this flattening of the age depth distribution requires that a separate function be fit to data older than 80 ma as a result data representing the deepest seafloor older than 80 ma were selected for curve fitting and the age depth distribution was approximated by an exponential function it is impossible to distinguish between the infinite half space and cooling plate models of the lithopshere using the age depth data from the pacific ocean a depth anomaly map prepared by comparing observed depth with the depth predicted by the new age depth formula shows several newly recognized features including swells over the louisville ridge in the south pacific and in the gulf of alaska seamounts

long wavelength s wave velocity structure throughout the mantle summary long wavelength s wave velocity anomalies are obtained for the entire mantle by inverting 6ooo long period 40 100s sh body waves and lo00 long period 100 500 s love waves in the shallow mantle the patterns of fast and slow velocity anomalies correlate well with age and tectonics in the depth range of 400 1000 km we find two antipodal fast velocity anomalies one in the western pacific and the other in south america they form a fairly strong i 2 anomaly moreover the 1 2 anomaly is the largest spherical harmonic component throughout the entire mantle except for in the layer of 1000 1300 km depth a fast velocity anomaly near the caribbean previously reported by several other investigators is found between the depths of 1000 and 1300km with diminishing amplitudes it can be traced to canada and the aleutians and may be related to old subducted slabs in the same depth interval similar size anomalies can be found in the middle of the pacific and in the indian ocean these could be checked by more detailed studies to judge the reliability of this study heterogeneity power has a peak at the surface and a secondary peak at the bottom of the mantle d consistent with the existence of chemical and or thermal boundary layers at the base of the mantle we also find a fast velocity anomaly which surrounds the pacific ocean this feature has been found by other researchers previously but its interpretation is difficult due to the trade off between velocity anomaly and core mantle boundary deformation

the nicoya convergent margin a region of exceptionally low heat flow over 100 measurements of seafloor heat flow reveal that the accretionary complex adjacent to the nicoya peninsula is characterized by remarkably low heat flow values over the accretionary prism average 28 mw m and values in the trench and the ocean crust seaward of the trench average 14 mw m we attribute the low heat flow to effective hydrothermal cooling of the upper crust on the subducting plate and suggest that extensional faults created by flexure of the lithosphere enhance hydrothermal circulation thermal models show that subduction of low temperature crust combined with significant frictional heating at the decollement can explain the low and uniform heat flow disparity between heat flow values observed on the lower trench slope with model results suggests upward advection of heat by porewater flux through broadly distributed conduits

the effect of hot spots on the oceanic age depth relation hot spots located both midplate and on midocean ridges can bias the empirical age depth relation ocean floor bathymetry for seafloor greater than 80 m y b p in age has been previously used to determine if the oceanic lithosphere behaves as a cooling half space or as a cooling plate however large areas of the ocean basins do not fit a simple age depth relation anomalously shallow swells approximately 1000 km wide and 1 km high surround hot spots such as iceland the azores and the cape verde islands by sorting seafloor depth data by distance to the nearest hot spot track we show that the along isochron variation in depth in the north atlantic correlates with distance from a hot spot track due to the absence in the north atlantic of seafloor both old and far from hot spots we compare depth versus age at constant distance and do not observe flattening of the age depth relation in any distance range the age depth relation depth meters 2700 295 t m y 1 2 derived for seafloor 1200 to 1800 km from a hot spot track represents our best estimate of the age depth relation appropriate to seafloor unaffected by a hot spot track in the north atlantic the previously inferred flattening of the age depth relation appears to be caused by the inclusion of hot spot swells this implies that hot spots may be the primary means of heat transfer from the deeper mantle to the base of the lithosphere

depth and age in the north pacific the concept of the oceanic lithosphere as a cooling thermal boundary layer on top of a viscous upper mantle accounts for the increase in depth with age of the ocean floor analyses of the exact nature of this relation provide constraints on the rheology and structure of this layer in past studies problems with uncertainties of age and in sediment thickness have limited the value of this relation on older ocean floor in this study we evaluate different tectonic histories for the quiet zones and construct a revised isochron chart for the north pacific we check and modify the current sediment thickness charts using new deep sea drilling data and revised ideas concerning reflectors in the southwestern north pacific averaging the synbaps digital data base into half by half degree elements and correcting for sediment load we plot basement depth versus age for the entire north pacific because of the skewness in the data associated with seamounts we present the data as contours about the mode and find that two thirds of the observations lie within 300 m of this value on crust between 0 and 80 ma the ocean floor subsides with the square root of age on ocean floor older than 100 ma the depths in general flatten with age with areally correlateable swells and valleys the hawaiian and line island swells correlate positively and the mariana basin valley negatively with geoid height the flattening in the depths indicates that the thermal boundary layer has reached equilibrium conditions under older ocean floor further the correlation of the swells and valleys with geoid height presents evidence for organized convection in the upper mantle beneath older lithosphere in the north pacific

on the relationship between sst gradients boundary layer winds and convergence over the tropical oceans a linear mixed layer model that skillfully reproduces observed surface winds and convergence over the tropicaloceans is used to examine the relative influenceof boundarylayer and free tropospheric processes on the distribution of climatological surface winds and convergence the semiempirical model assumes a subcloud layer momentum force balance between pressure gradients coriolis acceleration linearized friction and downward momentum mixing and it utilizes boundary conditions from the 40 yr ecmwf re analysis era 40 observed pressure gradients are linearly decomposed into boundary layer defined as the region below 850 hpa and free tropospheric components and the surface winds and convergence associated with these components are computed results show that surface zonal winds are predominantly associated with a combination of free tropospheric pressure gradients and downward momentum mixing whereas the distribution of convergence is primarily due to boundary layer temperature gradients which are closely related to sst gradients the authors conclude that the climatological distribution of boundary layer convergence is primarily a function of the pattern of sst gradients and is better regarded as a cause rather than a consequence of deep convection

satellite measurements reveal persistent small scale features in ocean winds four year averages of 25 kilometer resolution measurements of near surface wind speed and direction over the global ocean from the quikscat satellite radar scatterometer reveal the existence of surprisingly persistent small scale features in the dynamically and thermodynamically important curl and divergence of the wind stress air sea interaction over sea surface temperature fronts throughout the world ocean is evident in both the curl and divergence fields as are the influences of islands and coastal mountains ocean currents such as the gulf stream generate distinctive patterns in the curl field these previously unresolved features have important implications for oceanographic and air sea interaction research

fluid flow and mass flux determinations at vent sites on the cascadia margin accretionary prism fluid venting from the toe of the accretionary prism off oregon was measured in situ during a series of dives with dsrv alvin in 1987 and 1988 a benthic chamber was placed over active vent sites to sequentially collect samples of venting fluids and to make direct measurements of discharge rates calibrated flow meter measurements and flow rates determined from dissolved methane transfer indicate that discharge from two vent sites alvin 1428 and alvin 1900 ranges roughly between 100 and 500 l m 2 d 1 with the most reliable estimates falling in the range of 125 150 l m 2d 1 these rates imply subsurface advective flow on the order of 100 m yr 1 comparison of observed discharge rates with rates calculated for steady state expulsion supported by accretion related compaction indicates that the observed flow is greater than predicted flow by several orders of magnitude the disparity dictates that fluids are not derived locally but are transported laterally within the prism or that flow is not steady state and that individual vents are short lived features in the ongoing accretion process

observation of spatial variability of diurnal thermocline and rain formed halocline in the western pacific warm pool abstract high resolution measurements of temperature and salinity were made in the near surface layer of the ocean during the tropical oceans global atmosphere coupled ocean atmosphere response experiment using probes mounted on the bow of the r v moana wave because of surface waves and pitching of the vessel the bow probes profiled the near surface layer of the ocean within depths of 0 4 0 m in the near surface layer of the ocean in the western pacific warm pool strong variability of temperature and salinity produced by diurnal heating and or rain was often observed the contoured density field revealed cases of pronounced spatial variability the shallow diurnal thermocline and rain formed halocline are subject to perturbations that sometimes look like large amplitude internal waves possible sources of the internal waves in the near surface layer of the ocean are discussed

fluid accumulation and channeling along the northern barbados ridge decollement thrust a volume of three dimensional seismic reflection data acquired in 1992 imaged the decollement beneath the northern barbados ridge accretionary prism revealing reflection amplitude and waveform variations attributed to fluid accumulations along the plate boundary fault we model the seismic reflection by inversion for seismic impedance the product of velocity and density throughout the 5 x 25 km survey area and thus map physical property variations in 1997 ocean drilling program leg 171a penetrated the protodecollement and decollement at five sites with a logging while drilling lwd tool to log density and other physical properties of the decollement we construct a regional map of density and inferred porosity within the decollement from seismic models calibrated with lwd density data in the sediments out in front of the trench the protodecollement forms in a radiolarian rich miocene mudstone with an anomalously high porosity 70 75 that appears as a pervasive inherent characteristic of this interval seaward of the deformation front in the decollement beneath the wedge a consolidation trend of decreasing porosity runs perpendicular to the deformation front with porosity decreasing from 70 at the wedge toe to 50 4 km from the wedge toe a second distinct trend also forms along a 10 km long 1 to 2 km wide ne sw zone in which porosity is 70 as high as it is in the protodecollement this zone can be explained as an area of the decollement where fluid accumulations develop by maintaining high fluid content we postulate that high fluid content is maintained by continuous recharge flowing into and along this channel this porosity distribution within the decollement also strongly influences fluid migration into the overlying accretionary wedge and is directly associated with fluid charging of ramps and out of sequence thrusts above the decollement

aspherical earth structure from fundamental spheroidal mode data free oscillation data reveal heterogeneity in the earth s mantle whose geographical pattern is dominated by spherical harmonics of angular degree two and correlates well with the hydrostatically referenced geoid the heterogeneity can be modelled as localized in the transition zone 420 670 km depth and may be related to a large scale component of mantle convection

modeling the transient response of tropical convection to mesoscale sst variations abstracta cloud resolving model coupled to a mixed layer ocean with an initial 500 km wide 3 k sea surface temperature sst patch is used to demonstrate the relationship between tropical mesosca

anisotropy and shear velocity heterogeneities in the upper mantle long period surface waves are used to map lateral heterogeneities of velocity and anisotropy in the upper mantle the dispersion curves are expanded in spherical harmonics up to degree 6 and inverted to find the depth structure the data are corrected for the effect of surface layers and both love and rayleigh waves are used shear wave velocity and shear polarization anisotropy can be resolved down to a depth of about 450 km the shear wave velocity distribution to 200 km depth correlates with surface tectonics except in a few anomalous regions below that depth the correlation vanishes cold subducted material shows up weakly at 350 km as fast s wave anomalies in the transition region a large scale pattern appears with fast mantle in the south atlantic s anisotropy at 200 km can resolve uprising or downwelling currents under some ridges and subduction zones the pacific shows a nw se fabric

three dimensional seismic imaging of the costa rica accretionary prism field program and migration examples seismic reflection techniques are the primary geophysical tool used to examine the structure of continental margins on convergent plate margins widely separated seismic reflection profiles often do not image complex structural features because out of plane reflections and diffractions obscure the seismic images yet the structural features are often critical to understanding the tectonic processes thus the resulting geologic interpretations are based on images that may not accurately represent the true subsurface structure to image the complex geologic structures of an active continental margin a three dimensional 3 d seismic survey was conducted off of the nicoya peninsula of costa rica in april 1987 over 60 000 shot points of 96 trace multichannel data were collected in a 9 22 km grid this detailed survey was located over the accretionary prism and designed to investigate the active tectonic processes and evolution of this continental margin in this paper we outline the data acquisition program including the navigation processing critical to successful imaging and the seismic processing methodology and then show several examples of images improved by 3 d surveying the resulting 3 d seismic data were migrated both as independent lines and as a 3 d volume seismic images were produced as conventional depth and time sections and as cross sectional slices in depth and time we present comparisons of the migration results that show significant improvements of the subsurface image using 3 d techniques to illustrate these improvements we present images of two complex geologic areas a mud volcano and reflections near the top of the accretionary prism and the top of the subducting oceanic basement beneath the prism comparisons between the original stacked data the data of the two dimensional migration and the results of the 3 d migration illustrate the value of 3 d techniques in studies of active margins in addition to the advantages of the 3 d imaging which include better structural delineation and improved signal to noise ratio in the final image we show that the ability to view the 3 d data volume in both section and plan view offers significant interpretational advantages

tectonic signatures in centimeter scale velocity porosity relationships of costa rica convergent margin sediments 1 the costa rica convergent margin investigated during ocean drilling program leg 170 offers a unique opportunity to compare the tectonic effects of rapid subduction on incoming oceanic sediments to their laterally equivalent underthrust counterparts and to terrestrially derived wedge materials elevated pressure laboratory measurements of ultrasonic compressional and shear wave velocity and porosity are used to examine the importance of tectonic lithologic and diagenetic controls on physical and elastic properties of sediments in these three key tectonic domains depositional and stress path histories of the three domains for example can be distinguished by 1 trends of in situ velocity porosity and derived measurements correspondence and 2 the mechanical response of representative materials to isotropic consolidation a compressional wave velocity porosity model critical for the application of seismic imaging to margin wide physical property and mass balance estimates is developed from the laboratory measurements and shown to be consistent with the information derived from lwd bulk density and migrated seismic reflection data this consistency of the velocity porosity model over the large range of both frequency and length measurement scales is a key result supporting the assertion that core and borehole physical property measurements can be extrapolated to larger domains finally dewatering and overpressure effects critical factors in subduction zone and fault process dynamics and increasingly common multiphase converted wave imaging targets are discussed in terms of laboratory estimated in situ compressional and shear wave velocity relationships

mapping convection in the mantle long period 100 250 sec love and rayleigh waves are used to map heterogeneity and azimuthal anisotropy in the upper mantle spherical harmonic descriptions of anisotropy up to l m 3 and 2 are derived azimuthal anisotropy obtains values as high as 1 there is good correlation of fast rayleigh wave directions with upper mantle return flow directions derived from kinematic considerations this is consistent with the a axis of olivine being aligned in the flow direction the main differences between the flow models and the rayleigh wave azimuthal variation maps occur in the vicinity of hotspots hawaii for example appears to perturb the return flow there is strong correlation of the geoid and surface wave velocity at l 4 and 5 slow regions at this scale are associated with geoid highs and high heat flow consistent with upwelling convective flow or with isostatically compensated regions of low density the correlation of azimuthal anisotropy with upper mantle return flow directions rather than with plate directions suggests that part of the return flow is in the upper mantle and this in turn implies a low viscosity channel

northern east pacific rise magnetic anomaly and bathymetric framework the oceanic crust in the eastern pacific between 7on and 30on and east of 127ow contains a fairly complete history of the spreading centers associated with the east pacific rise since 25 m y b p late oligocene in this paper we have summarized the seafloor spreading magnetic anomaly data and the bathymetric data that reflect the record of this tectonic history the well defined magnetic lineations north of the clarion fracture zone in the mouth of the gulf of california and on the east flank of the east pacific rise epr are carefully examined and used to provide a guide for interpreting the spreading pattern between the clarion and clipperton fracture zones southward of the rivera fracture zone over the mathematician ridge and over the entire epr east of the mathematician ridge between the rivera and siqueiros fracture zones the bathymetric data provide a trace of the fracture zone pattern in each of the above mentioned areas the fracture zone bathymetry and the seafloor spreading magnetic lineations on the epr south of the rivera fracture zone have a distinctive fanning pattern caused by close poles of rotation and plate boundary reorganizations all these data provide a good record of the plate reorganizations in the middle miocene at magnetic anomaly 5a time 12 5 to 11 m y b p in the late miocene at magnetic anomaly 3 4 time 6 5 m y b p and in the pliocene at magnetic anomaly 2 3 time 3 5 m y b p several abandoned spreading centers including the mathematician ridge were left behind as a result of these reorganizations the mathematician ridge is shown to be a set of ridges and trough whose origin is related to the tectonic activity associated with each of the above mentioned reorganizations since anomaly 5a

modeling tropical convergence based on the moist static energy budget abstract the vertically integrated moist static energy equation provides a convenient starting point for the construction of simple models of the time mean low level convergence in the tropics a vertically integrated measure of the moist static stability the gross moist stability proves to be of central importance minima in this quantity mark the positions of the tropical convergence zones we argue that the positions of these minima are determined by the time mean moisture field which is in turn closely tied to the time mean surface temperature

three dimensional seismic imaging of the costa rica accretionary prism structural diversity in a small volume of the lower slope conventional two dimensional seismic reflection investigations have been generally relied upon to provide images of large to medium scale structural features in accretionary prisms we undertook a three dimensional seismic reflection survey of a small part of a prism arcward of the middle america trench off costa rica to more correctly image structure and to use the improved structural information to examine the processes of accretion this survey reveals small features with dimensions of hundreds of meters while also defining features thousands of meters in lateral extent both of which were underappreciated in conventional two dimensional data from the same area we have imaged active off scraping at the trench and both duplexing and out of sequence faulting a few kilometers arcward of the trench fault spacing and reflector geometry vary dramatically over a space of several hundred meters some of these variations are related to visible changes in morphology of the underlying oceanic basement but others are not so easily documented fault surface reflections define an architecture which may control gross fluid motion through the prism this architecture is apparently formed by duplexing and out of sequence faulting and has been maintained by periodic motion on some of the out of sequence faults the slope sediment apron records multiple phases of deformation abundant small offset reverse faults break the seafloor and indicate recent shortening of a broad region of the underlying prism a primary result of this survey is appreciation of the structural diversity across a small width of an accretionary prism

mapping the upper mantle three dimensional modeling of earth structure by inversion of seismic waveforms a method is presented for the inversion of waveform data for the three dimensional distribution of seismic wave velocities the method is applied to data from the global digital networks international deployment of accelerometers global digital seismograph network the selected data set consists of some 2000 seismograms corresponding to 53 events and 870 paths the moment tensors of the earthquakes are determined through an iterative procedure which minimizes the corrupting influence of lateral heterogeneity a global model is constructed for shear wave velocity expanded up to degree and order 8 in spherical harmonics and described by a cubic polynomial in depth for the upper 670 km of the earth s mantle although no a priori information is incorporated the model predictions reproduce much of what is known about the dispersion of mantle waves for example high phase velocities for shields low velocities at ridges and a strong degree 2 pattern for rayleigh waves since the method makes use of complete waveforms overtone data are also included it is shown that the model is reproducible in that substantially the same model can be constructed from each half of the total data set considered independently the model shows that shields and ridges are major features in the depth interval 25 250 km the ridges of the southern pacific and the larger shields persist to 350 km but the southeast indian rise is underlain by a high velocity anomaly at this depth as is much of the mid atlantic ridge at 450 650 km the major features are a broad region of high velocities incorporating south america much of the south atlantic and parts of west africa a broad region of low velocities in the central and eastern pacific high velocities in the western pacific and a low velocity anomaly beneath the red sea and the gulf of aden in the absence of a crustal correction degrees 2 and 3 show a high positive correlation with the geoid paradoxically this is largely destroyed when the distribution in crustal thickness is taken into account spherical harmonic degrees 4 7 show a significant negative correlation

initiation of convective storms at radar observed boundary layer convergence lines abstract the origin of 653 convective storms occurring over a 5000 km2 area immediately east of the colorado rocky mountains from 18 may to 15 august 1984 was examined seventy nine percent of the 418 storms that initiated within the study area occurred in close proximity to radar observed boundary layer convergence lines this percentage increased to 95 when only the more intense storms 60 dbze were considered colliding convergence lines initiated new storms or intensified existing storms in 71 of the cases a new storm took a median time of 24 min to grow to 30 dbz following line collision the convergence lines ranged in length between ten and several hundred kilometers both radar and mesonet stations indicated that the primary convergence was concentrated in a zone 0 5 to 5 km in width these lines were characterized on doppler radar as thin lines of enhanced reflectivity between 0 and 20 dbze and as a line of strong radial or azimuthal gradient in doppler velocity these lines were observed ev

anisotropic models of the upper mantle long period rayleigh wave and love wave dispersion data particularly for oceanic areas have not been simultaneously satisfied by an isotropic structure in this paper available phase and group velocity data are inverted by a procedure which includes the effects of transverse anisotropy anelastic dispersion sphericity and gravity we assume that the surface wave data represents an azimuthal average of actual velocities thus we can treat the mantle as transversely isotropic the resulting models for average earth average ocean and oceanic regions divided according to the age of the ocean floor are quite different from previous results which ignore the above effects the models show a low velocity zone with age dependent anisotropy and velocities higher than derived in previous surface wave studies the correspondence between the anisotropy variation with age and a physical model based on flow aligned olivine is suggestive for most of the earth sh sv in the vicinity of the low velocity zone neat the east pacific rise however sv sh at depth consistent with ascending flow anisotropy is as important as temperature in causing radial and lateral variations in velocity the models have a high velocity nearly isotropic layer at the top of the mantle that thickens with age this layer defines the lid or seismic lithosphere in the pacific the lid thickens with age to a maximum thickness of 50 km this thickness is comparable to the thickness of the elastic lithosphere the lid thickness is thinner than derived using isotropic or pseudo isotropic procedures a new model for average earth is obtained which includes a thin lid this model extends the fit of a prem type model to shorter period surface waves

the propagation and diurnal cycles of deep convection in northern tropical africa the propagation and diurnal cycle of organized convection in northern tropical africa are examined using five years 1999 2003 of digital infrared imagery for may august reduced dimension techniques are used to document the properties of cold clouds proxies for deep convection and precipitation large scale environments are diagnosed from global analyses organized convection in africa consists of coherent sequences or episodes which span an average distance of about 1000 km and last about 25 h a substantial fraction of events exhibits systematic propagation at regional to continental scales while undergoing decay and regeneration episodes with 36 h duration and 1472 km span recur at a one per day interval most episodes have phase speed of 10 20 m s 1 which is faster than most african easterly waves convective episodes tend to initiate in the lee of high terrain consistent with thermal forcing from elevated heat sources average diurnal frequency maxima result from the superposition of local diurnal maximum with the delayed phase arrival of systems propagating from the east propagation occurs with moderate low to mid tropospheric shear which varies with the african easterly jet migration and west african monsoon phases frequent deep convection occurs with local shear maxima near high terrain for the peak monsoon period and for 10 w 10 e where easterly waves and convective systems are frequent 35 of cold cloud episodes occur east of the wave trough compared with about 24 to the west based on the coherent behaviour of organized propagating convection inferences may be made regarding the prediction of precipitation beyond one or two days copyright 2008 royal meteorological society

anomalous heat flow and geoid across the cape verde rise evidence for dynamic support from a thermal plume in the mantle summary we describe results from 200 heat flow measurements across the cape verde rise in the north atlantic they show that the heat flow through normal 125 myr old crust is 45 5 3 4mwm 2 close to the prediction for a lithospheric plate model heat flow increases towards the centre of the rise reaching a maximum of 16 4 mw m 2 above the normal oceanic value the concommitant geoid anomaly at the centre of the rise is 7 6 0 3 m and the depth anomaly is 1900 200 m the anomalous heat flow geoid and bathymetric values are used to constrain a variety of theoretical models of hot spot mechanisms lithospheric reheating models alone whether involving transient or sustained thinning of the lithosphere fail to model the broad heat flow anomaly and the long duration of uplift and volcanism observed on the cape verde rise axisymmetric convection models provide a better fit to the observed data and suggest that the swell is a consequence primarily of dynamic uplift generated by an ascending thermal plume in the underlying mantle uplift caused by expansion of the solid lithosphere is of smaller importance the observed geoid bathymetry and heat flow anomalies are reproduced well using convection models with upper mantle viscosities of 2 4 times 1020 pa s and a coefficient of thermal expansion in the range 2 0 2 5 times 10 5 k 1 the effect of melting in the ascending plume is to buffer the heat flow anomalies in the case of the cape verde rise partial melting is minimal but its effect on other hotspots will be to limit observed heat flow anomalies at the surface to less than 20 25 mw m 2

rayleigh wave attenuation and its variation across the atlantic ocean summary fundamental mode rayleigh walies generated by several earthquakes situated on great circle paths traversing pairs of seismograph stations in american and european coastal regions and on atlantic islands have been analysed to obtain anelastic attenuation coefficients group and phase velocities and specific quality factors at periods between 15 and 100s inversions of the dispersion and attenuation data have yielded shear velocity and shear wave internal friction qj models of the upper mantle for regions of varying age in the atlantic ocean the attenuation coefficients and internal friction values can be related to the age of the atlantic ocean floor older regions being characterized by lower internal friction or higher q values a lowq zone is prominent in the upper mantle of all regions less than 65 myr in age but is poorly developed in older regions in contrast to the attenuation results no systematic variations of rayleigh or shear velocities with age can be resolved using the dispersion data of this study a comparison of internal friction models beneath the atlantic with those beneath the pacific indicates that for regions of similar age internal friction is smaller or q larger beneath the atlantic than beneath the pacific especially in the younger regions immediately contiguous with the ridges in particular the upper mantle low velocity low q zone is less prominent beneath the atlantic the fact that spreading rates of the lithospheric plates are also smaller in the atlantic suggests that internal friction and the rate of long term creep in the mantle are closely related

on the role of sea surface temperature gradients in forcing low level winds and convergence in the tropics abstract we examine the importance of pressure gradients due to surface temperature gradients to low level p 700 mb flow and convergence in the tropics over time scales 1 month the latter plays a crucial role in determining the distribution of cumulonimbus convection and rainfall our approach is to consider a simple one layer model of the trade cumulus boundary layer wherein surface temperature gradients are mixed vertically consistent with ecmwf analyzed data the top of the layer is taken at 700 mb the influence from higher levels is intentionally suppressed by setting horizontal pressure gradients and frictional stresses to zero at the top of the layer horizontal convergence within the layer is taken up by cumulonimbus mass flux however the development of the cumulonimbus mass flux is associated with a short relaxation time o hr roughly the development time for such convection during this short time horizontal convergence acts to redistribute mass so as to reduce horizontal pressur

waveform inversion of mantle love waves the born seismogram approach summary normal mode theory extended to the slightly laterally heterogeneous earth by the first order born approximation is applied to the waveform inversion of mantle love wave 200 500 s for the earth s lateral heterogeneity at l 2 and a spherically symmetric anelasticity q structure the data are from the global digital seismograph network gdsn the l 2 pattern is very similar to the results of other studies that used either different methods such as phase velocity measurements and multiplet location measurements or a different data set such as mantle rayleigh waves from different instruments the results are carefully analysed for variance reduction and are most naturally explained by heterogeneity in the upper 420 km because of the poor resolution of the data set for the deep interior however a fairly large heterogeneity in the transition zones of the order of up to 3 5 per cent in shear wave velocity is allowed it is noteworthy that love waves of this period range cannot constrain the structure below 420 km and thus any model presented by similar studies below this depth are likely to be constrained by rayleigh waves spheroidal modes only the calculated modal q values for the obtained q model fall within the error bars of the observations the result demonstrates the discrepancy of rayleigh wave q and love wave q and indicates that care must be taken when both rayleigh and love wave data including amplitude information are inverted simultaneously anomalous amplitude inversions of g2 and g3 for example are observed for some source receiver pairs this is due to multipathing effects one example near the epicentral region which is modelled by the obtained l 2 heterogeneity is shown

tropical island convection in the absence of significant topography part ii nowcasting storm evolution abstract this paper examines influences on the short range prediction of organized convection under conditions of strong diurnal forcing the analyses are based on data provided by the maritime continent thunderstorm experiment which was conducted in 1995 over the tiwi islands 11 s 50 100 km north of the australian continent organized convection over the tiwi islands is often dubbed hector by residents and researchers alike the authors purpose is to utilize results from these analyses to improve convective storm nowcast systems and their associated forecast and warning products the environmental near surface wind direction is shown to be singularly influential in statistically predicting the location of convection and its time of occurrence over the tiwi islands this finding is robust despite the fact that mean wind speeds were merely 1 4 m s 1 the island boundary layer water vapor mixing ratio derived from a morning sounding and inland surface stations is shown to be correlated with measu

extinct spreading on the cocos ridge using recently acquired marine magnetic data and existing magnetic and bathymetric data sets together with odp leg 170 age determinations we present a revised plate tectonic model for the southern cocos and northern nazca plate area according to this model the formation of the southern cocos plate was governed by spreading at different ridge axes with alternations between spreading ridges producing a complex magnetic anomaly pattern in the cocos and malpelo ridge area we have identified two precursors of the recently active cocos nacza spreading system which were active from 22 8 to 14 7 ma with a change in spreading direction from nw se to ene wsw at 19 5 ma the oceanic crust of these abandoned spreading systems was subsequently thickened and overprinted by hotspot volcanism that formed the cocos and malpelo ridges the centre of this hotspot volcanism is about 500 km away from but most probably related to the galapagos hotspot

structure of the costa rica convergent margin offshore nicoya peninsula we present the results of a seismic refraction survey conducted offshore costa rica near the nicoya peninsula a dip profile and three strike profiles were carried out over 22 ocean bottom hydrophones and seismographs and were also recorded by land receivers these data are used to construct a crustal structure model of the convergent margin from 20 km seaward of the middle america trench onto the nicoya peninsula the best constrained portion of our model is the velocity at the top of the margin wedge immediately below the slope apron velocities increase from 3 5 to 4 2 to 4 6 km s at distances of 10 20 and 30 50 km landward of the trench these velocities are higher than observed within margin wedges at other well studied convergent margins but lower than the velocities within the adjacent nicoya complex which are 5 5 km s at similar depths below the surface we interpret the margin wedge velocities as indicating that material similar to the nicoya complex extends seaward to near the lower slope but that fracturing alteration or accretion processes have lowered the velocity of the margin wedge with respect to the nicoya complex the seismic refraction data cannot constrain the exact thickness or velocity of a possible low velocity zone lvz overlying the subducting plate however geologically reasonable structures are only produced with a lvz 400 m thick velocities in the upper part of oceanic layer 2 are 3 5 4 0 km s within the subducting slab these velocities are unusually low for oceanic crust of this age and may correlate with a proposed highly permeable zone at the top of the subducting crust the top of the subducted slab is well resolved and deepens from 5 km depth at the trench to 15 16 km depth at the nicoya peninsula coastline the dip angle of the subducting plate increases from 6 to 13 at a distance of 30 km from the trench interplate seismicity appears to become common 55 km from the trench where the plate boundary is at 14 km depth

slow wavespeeds and fluid overpressure in a region of shallow geodetic locking and slow slip hikurangi subduction margin new zealand abstract travel times recorded onshore from active source marine seismic surveys were used to determine hikurangi forearc wavespeeds ray path midpoints sample forearc crust above the shallow v p from the seabed to 4 km depth consistent with rapidly deposited clastic sediments and near constant v p 5 0 0 2 km s at depths of 4 10 km within the forearc the northern region has slow slip events at shallow depths of c 5 15 km beneath the volume sampled by our analysis average travel times at offsets of 20 80 km are 1 s more than at equivalent offsets in the south and v p increases with depth within the forearc from 3 5 0 1 km s at 4 km depth to 4 5 0 2 km s at 10 km depth we interpret the low wavespeeds in terms of compaction disequilibrium and compare seismic inferences of anomalously high porosity 10 with hydrostatic reference compaction models to show effective stress is low in both the north 27 10 mpa and south 36 14 mpa in the south pore space and conduits have a high chance of being localized on faults or sand layers the wedge is clearly compressionally critical and we suggest the higher seismic velocities recorded primarily reflect higher effective stress levels transmitted through the rock framework the observed wedge geometry and our estimate of fluid pressure within the wedge 0 87 0 05 suggest a weak overpressured subduction thrust in the north we suggest high fluid pressure is maintained by a large fluid inventory from subducting sediment a pore space geometry characterized by pervasively fractured rock and mudstone and a lower mean stress due to its stable and non critical wedge geometry we consider both end member assumptions of convergent and tensile failure the latter of which reveals the possibility of near lithostatic fluid pressure on the north hikurangi subduction interface although this remains unproven our observations are consistent with high fluid pressures encountered in petroleum wells at depths

fluid flow paths in the middle america trench and costa rica margin the hydrology of the subducting plate and its dewatering behavior through the shallow subduction zone is linked to the structure and deformation of the forearc prism the nature of the seismogenic zone the composition of seawater for selected elements and the composition of the residual slab subducted to depths of magma generation at the volcanic arc two locally independent systems of fluid flow govern the transport of heat and chemistry through the costa rica subduction complex a dominantly nonaccretionary subduction zone one fluid system is the margin wedge decollement and underthrust sediment section fluid sources include local sediment compaction and mineral dehydration at depth a second flow system occurs in basement beneath the sedimentary sequence on the incoming plate this region is characterized by extremely low conductive heat flow and the sediment overlying basement has pore water geochemistry similar to that of seawater flow nearly parallel to the trench could be directed by permeability associated with faults and driven by a combination of differential heating and earthquake strain cycling

excitation of rainfall over the tropical western pacific abstractthe authors have examined 4 years of satellite derived sst and rainfall data in anticipation of a relationship between sst structure and the excitation of convective rainfall the results exhibit a strong excitation signal consistent with the presence of mesoscale sst gradients in about 75 of approximately 10 000 rainfall onset events rainfall onset events occur at locations with enhanced horizontal convergence as inferred by the laplacian of sst on scales of order 100 km the daily sst field exhibits multiscale patchiness spanning a 2 c range the signal is disproportionately large at ssts that are 0 25 c above the mean near 29 5 c disproportionately weak for sst 28 8 c and proportionately neutral for sst 30 3 c the calculations suggest that a characteristic strength of this lower boundary forcing 3 10 5 s 1 is approximately one order of magnitude stronger than the mean regional background forcing 3 10 6 s 1 the periphery of warm oceanic patches exhibits both convergent an

carbon release from submarine seeps at the costa rica fore arc implications for the volatile cycle at the central america convergent margin 1 we report total dissolved inorganic carbon dic abundances and isotope ratios as well as helium isotope ratios 3he 4he of cold seep fluids sampled at the costa rica fore arc in order to evaluate the extent of carbon loss from the submarine segment of the central america convergent margin seep fluids were collected over a 12 month period at mound 11 mound 12 and jaco scar using copper tubing attached to submarine flux meters operating in continuous pumping mode the fluids show minimum 3he 4he ratios of 1 3 ra where ra is air 3he 4he consistent with a small but discernable contribution of mantle derived helium at mound 11 13c co2 values between 23 9 and 11 6 indicate that dic is predominantly derived from deep methanogenesis and is carried to the surface by fluids derived from sediments of the subducting slab in contrast at mound 12 most of the ascending dissolved methane is oxidized due to lower flow rates giving extremely low 13c co2 values ranging from 68 2 to 60 3 we estimate that the carbon flux co2 plus methane through submarine fluid venting at the outer fore arc is 8 0 105 g c km 1 yr 1 which is virtually negligible compared to the total sedimentary carbon input to the margin and the output at the volcanic front unless there is a significant but hitherto unidentified carbon flux at the inner fore arc the implication is that most of the carbon being subducted in costa rica must be transferred to the deeper mantle i e beyond the depth of arc magma generation

nonlinear variations of the physical properties along the southern ecuador subduction channel results from depth migrated seismic data abstract we use two high quality pre stack depth migrated multichannel seismic profiles acquired to quantify physical properties variations of underthrust sediments along the first 30 km of subduction off the erosional southern ecuadorian margin seismic data show three zones along the subduction channel referred to as zones i ii and iii characterized by distinct velocity and velocity derived physical properties which are in agreement with values estimated from experimental results of deformation in granular media these three zones result from transformational changes of underthrust sediments governed by fundamentally different physical processes that control their mechanical behavior at increasing confining pressures based on our observations and its comparison with experimental results we argue that the transformations undergone by underthrust sediments as they dip into the subduction zone are the following within zone i progressively increasing velocity and decreasing velocity derived porosity indicates continuous sediment compaction which must be accompanied by effective fluid drainage along the decollement and or across the accretionary wedge the underthrust material is here unconsolidated from a mechanical point of view laboratory experiments indicate that the dominant processes at this range of pressures are grain rolling particle rotation and frictional slip at grain contacts within zone ii velocity and porosity remains constant for 16 km sis 72 and 12 km sis 18 this suggests undrained conditions resulting in growing fluid overpressure at the subduction channel grain deformation is similar to zone i within zone iii velocity increases and porosity falls rapidly indicating sediment compaction and subsequent release of over pressured fluids where grain deformation is likely to be elastic this might be the dominant process until the grains attain their crushing strength resulting in granular cataclasis and eventually in the collapse of the system we suggest that over pressured fluid release may induce hydrofracturation and it is likely to increase inter plate coupling down from zone iii

convectively coupled equatorial waves 1 convectively coupled equatorial waves ccews control a substantial fraction of tropical rainfall variability their horizontal structures and dispersion characteristics correspond to matsuno s 1966 solutions of the shallow water equations on an equatorial beta plane namely kelvin equatorial rossby mixed rossby gravity and inertio gravity waves because of moist processes the tilted vertical structures of ccews are complex and their scales do not correspond to that expected from the linear theory of dry waves the dynamical structures and cloud morphology of ccews display a large degree of self similarity over a surprisingly wide range of scales with shallow convection at their leading edge followed by deep convection and then stratiform precipitation mirroring that of individual mesoscale convective complexes ccews have broad impacts within the tropics and their simulation in general circulation models is still problematic although progress has been made using simpler models a complete understanding of ccews remains a challenge in tropical meteorology

geometric effects of global lateral heterogeneity on long period surface wave propagation long period rayleigh waves from iranian earthquakes have large amplitude asymmetries between minor arc and major arc arrivals e g r 2 and r 3 at digital stations in the azimuth range n20 w to n60 e these asymmetries are as large as a factor of 2 at a period of 256 s and persist to periods greater than 300 s in some cases the entire rayleigh wave group arrival spanning periods from 100 to 300 s is either uniformly enhanced in amplitude or diminished to such a degree that the group arrival appears to be missing the amplitude anomalies are generally not accompanied by significant phase anomalies the irregular azimuthal distribution of the amplitude asymmetries and their occurrence for events with different focal mechanisms and epicentral separations of several hundred kilometers preclude an explanation of these observations by source complexity events in the mediterranean and nepal do not produce similar amplitude asymmetries at the same stations the anomalies are thus most likely due to focusing and defocusing propagation effects as a preliminary investigation of the effects of lateral heterogeneity of upper mantle velocity structure on long period surface wave amplitudes surface wave ray tracing calculations are performed using recently proposed global phase velocity distributions dramatic deviations from great circle paths are predicted for long propagation paths e g r 3 the particular spatial distribution of lateral velocity gradients around a given source location determines whether substantial amplitude asymmetries will be observed between minor arc and major arc arrivals and whether these will persist for sequential great circle orbits the 200 s period amplitude asymmetry observed at kip for the iranian source region r 2 4 r 3 is well predicted by the ray tracing results the absence of this anomaly for the other source regions is also predicted other observed anomalies are not all well predicted but it is clear that geometric effects can contribute significantly to the observed variations of rayleigh and love wave amplitudes this is the probable explanation for the instability of q estimates made from surface waves other source regions producing large surface wave amplitude anomalies include japan and southeastern alaska

10be imaging of sediment accretion and subduction along the northeast japan and costa rica convergent margins sediment accretion and subduction at convergent margins play an important role in the nature of hazardous interplate seismicity the seismogenic zone and the subduction recycling of volatiles and continentally derived materials to the earth s mantle identifying and quantifying sediment accretion essential for a complete mass balance across the margin can be difficult seismic images do not define the processes by which a prism was built and cored sediments may show disturbed magnetostratigraphy and sparse biostratigraphy this contribution reports the first use of cosmogenic 10be depth profiles to define the origin and structural evolution of forearc sedimentary prisms biostratigraphy and 10be model ages generally are in good agreement for sediments drilled at deep sea drilling project site 434 in the japan forearc and support an origin by imbricate thrusting for the upper section forearc sediments from ocean drilling program site 1040 in costa rica lack good fossil or paleomagnetic age control above the decollement low and homogeneous 10be concentrations show that the prism sediments are older than 3 4 ma and that the prism is either a paleoaccretionary prism or it formed largely from slump deposits of apron sediments low 10be in costa rican lavas and the absence of frontal accretion imply deeper sediment underplating or subduction erosion

worldwide distribution of group velocity of mantle rayleigh waves as determined by spherical harmonic inversion we have determined the worldwide distribution of group velocity of mantle rayleigh waves for periods between 100 and 300 sec without assuming any regionalization group slowness 1 u is expressed by spherical harmonics and the coefficients up to angular order 7 have been determined from travel times of rayleigh waves by a least squares method from these u has been synthesized since we cannot obtain information about the odd terms of the expansion from one circuit measurements around the world we have used group velocities of mainly r 2 and r 3 the overall pattern of u for periods between 100 and 200 sec is consistent with results of previous pure path and regional studies group velocities for tectonically active regions are low and those of the shields and the northwestern pacific are high

influence of ocean surface conditions on atmospheric vertical thermodynamic structure and deep convection abstract the authors analyze the influence of sea surface temperature sst and surface wind divergence on atmospheric thermodynamic structure and the resulting effects on the occurrence of deep convection using national meteorological center radiosonde data and international satellite cloud climatology program data for july 1983 july 1985 the onset of deep convection requires not only the existence of positive convective available potential energy cape but also an unstable planetary boundary layer pbl a stable pbl is observed to suppress deep convection even when cape is positive variations of sst have a major effect on cape but surface wind divergence can also affect deep convection by changing the lapse rate in the lower troposphere and humidity in the pbl specifically when sst 28 c cape is always positive and surface wind divergence does not qualitatively change the buoyancy profile above the pbl strong surface wind divergence however stabilizes the pbl so as to suppress the initiation

tropical island convection in the absence of significant topography part i life cycle of diurnally forced convection abstract diurnally forced convection was observed over the tiwi islands north of the australian continent as part of the maritime continent thunderstorm experiment immature peninsula scale 5 15 km sea breezes were observed to initiate moist convection early each day principally through convergence that results from the confluence or collision of peninsula breeze fronts convection initiated by peninsula scale breezes usually fails to organize beyond a small cluster of cells and dissipates as a local event mature island scale 100 km breezes develop by late morning and subsequently play a pivotal role in the forcing and evolution of organized convection the initiation of mesoscale convective systems mcss is observed to be a direct consequence of breeze front collisions for only 20 of the days on which organized convection develops this is referred to as type a forcing and it occurs when normal convective development is delayed or otherwise suppressed type a forcing is nature s backup mech

dynamically supported geoid highs over hotspots observation and theory hotspots are associated with long wavelength geoid highs an association that is even stronger when the geoid highs associated with subduction zones are removed we quantify these associations by expanding the hotspot distribution in spherical harmonics and calculating correlation coefficients as a function of harmonic degree the hotspot distribution spectrum is nearly white except for peaks at degrees 2 and 6 it is correlated positively with the slab residual geoid for degrees 2 6 with low seismic velocity in the lower mantle at degree 2 and with low seismic velocity in the upper mantle at degree 6 we test fluid mechanical models for hotspots including lithospheric delamination and hot plumes by calculating their predicted dynamic geoid responses and comparing them to the observations these models include the effects of temperature dependent rheology our preferred hotspot model based on observations of the geoid and seismic tomography has plumes preferentially occurring in regions of large scale background temperature highs in a mantle which has a substantial viscosity increase with depth although other models are possible alternatively strong plumes in the lower mantle may neck down and attenuate in the upper mantle due to changes in plume viscosity the major low density anomalies causing the geoid highs associated with plumes appear to be in the lower mantle we hypothesize that cold lower mantle underlying the complementary geoid lows is due to deeply subducted oceanic lithosphere and that hotspot plumes tend to be excluded from these cold regions of the mantle

numerical study of an observed orogenic mesoscale convective system part 1 simulated genesis and comparison with observations abstract the interaction of topographically induced thermally and mechanically driven diurnal flow regimes in the lee of the rockies is shown to lead to the growth of a mesoscale convective system mcs an organic mcs observed during the 1977 combined south park area cumulus experiment and high plains experiment is numerically simulated with a two dimensional nonhydrostatic cloud model covering spatial scales of 1000 km in this numerical investigation meso meso and meso scales of motion are represented simultaneously as a result interesting features of cloud mesoscale interaction are predicted that cannot be represented in cloud parameterization frameworks based on the results of this simulation a six stage conceptual model of orogenic development is given

oceanic impetus for convective onset of the madden julian oscillation in the western indian ocean abstracta theory for intraseasonal atmosphere ocean atmosphere feedback is supported whereby oceanic equatorial rossby waves are partly forced in the eastern indian ocean by the madden julian oscillation mjo reemerge in the western indian ocean 70 days later and force large scale convergence in the atmospheric boundary layer that precedes mjo deep convection downwelling equatorial rossby waves permit high sea surface temperature sst and enhance meridional and zonal sst gradients that generate convergent circulations in the atmospheric boundary layer the magnitude of the sst and sst gradient increases are 0 25 c and 1 5 c mm 1 1 megameter is equal to 1000 km respectively the atmospheric circulations driven by the sst gradient are estimated to be responsible for up to 45 of the intraseasonal boundary layer convergence observed in the western indian ocean the sst induced boundary layer convergence maximizes 3 4 days prior to the convective maximum and is hypothesized to serve as a trigger for

transient fluid flow through the toe of the barbados accretionary complex constraints from ocean drilling program leg 110 heat row studies and simple models thirty four sediment and mud line temperatures were collected from six drill holes on ocean drilling program odp leg 110 near the toe of the barbados accretionary complex when combined with thermal conductivity measurements from sediment cores and results from earlier surveys these data delineate the complicated thermal structure on the edge of this convergent margin heat flow values at the seafloor of 92 192 mw m sup 2 are 80 300 higher than those predicted by standard heat flow versus age models for oceanic crust but are compatible with earlier seafloor measurements made in this area at the same latitude heat flow tends to decrease downhole at four sites suggesting the presence of heat sources within the sediments these results are consistent with the flow of warm fluids through the complex along high permeability conduits including thrust faults the major decollement zone and sandy intervals simple calculations suggest that this fluid flow is transient occurring on time scales of tens of thousands of years fluid flow velocities along the decollement zone estimated with a simple thermal model are about 10 sup minus 7 m s 100 times faster than predicted by numerical steady state analyses the estimated maximum sediment permeability within the decollement zone which was basedmore on the above fluid flow velocity is about 10 sup minus 12 m sup 2 also 100 times higher that that calculated numerically high heat flow in the vicinity of 15 degree 30 prime n and not elsewhere along the deformation front suggests that the leg 110 drill sites may be situated over a prism water discharge zone with dewatering more active here than elsewhere along the accretionary complex less

idealized modeling of the atmospheric boundary layer response to sst forcing in the western indian ocean abstractthe atmospheric response to sea surface temperature sst variations forced by oceanic downwelling equatorial rossby waves is investigated using an idealized convection resolving model dow

mapping the lower mantle determination of lateral heterogeneity in p velocity up to degree and order 6 the data from the international seismological centre bulletins for the years 1964 1979 are used to derive a three dimensional model of lateral variations of the p velocity in the lower mantle unlike previous studies in which such perturbations were represented by a blocklike parameterization we seek the solution in the form r k 0k l 0l m 0l k r kalm cos m kblm sin m plm cos some 500 000 travel time residuals for teleseismic distances from 5000 earthquakes are used in an iterative procedure to derive the coefficients a and b the maximum k and l used are 4 and 6 respectively in each iteration in addition to solving for the three dimensional structure we also relocate all the earthquakes perturb the average travel time curve and determine station corrections for over 1000 stations particular attention is given to the problem of weighting the individual observations in order to avoid as much as possible the bias due to the uneven distribution of sources and receivers the resulting model shows a high level of perturbations just below the 670 km discontinuity and just above the core mantle boundary where the maximum perturbations reach 1 1 5 of the average velocity even for this highly smoothed model at a depth of 2000 km the rms perturbations are some 3 to 4 times lower than at either of the two boundaries the model predicts well the large scale pattern of observed travel time residuals for various source regions except for the distinct effects of the subduction zones the most striking large scale three dimensional feature of the model is a ring of high velocities circumscribing the pacific basin within a depth range from 1000 km to the core mantle boundary if the proportionality between perturbations in the velocity and temperature is assumed the derived pattern of anomalies could be consistent with a two boundary layer model of convection in the lower mantle some caution however should be exercised in interpreting the results near the 670 km discontinuity where the resolving power of our data set is limited by the lack of adequate control of the upper mantle structure at the same time a significant global increase in the level of perturbations in the lowermost mantle is established beyond question the results of dziewonski et al 1977 on the correlation between the equivalent geoid and the observed geoid for the angular order numbers 2 and 3 is confirmed but there is no significant correlation for degrees from 4 to 6 these calculations are made for the rigid earth richards and hager this issue show that introduction of finite viscosity can change the sign of a geoid anomaly in addition recent studies of lateral variations in the shear velocity reveal the presence of large scale anomalies in the upper mantle thus while the inferences made here with respect to the origin of the gravest orders of the geopotential field are not conclusive they point the way in which results from seismology can be used to address some of the basic questions of geodynamics

the upper mantle degree 2 constraints and inferences from global mantle wave attenuation measurements we present the results of an analysis of global lateral variations in anelasticity of the upper mantle as measured from very long period rayleigh waves observed on the geoscope network four consecutive wave trains are used on each record to eliminate uncertainty on the amplitude at the source and to take into account in a linear manner focussing effects due to lateral variations in elastic parameters local estimates of attenuation are obtained using an inversion method based on the introduction of a correlation length as an alternative to spherical harmonics expansion comparison of phase velocity and attenuation maps obtained at various periods shows a strong correlation of high q and high velocity regions respectively low q and low velocity both for great circle and minor arc data at periods around 200 s the detailed analysis of the degree 2 pattern well resolved in the attenuation maps around this period shows that it originates in the depth range 250 500 km and indicates that of the upper mantle degree 2 pattern observed in shear velocity is likely to be of thermal origin possibly related to the topmost part of the large scale convective system corrections for dispersion due to anelastic attenuation in degree 2 lead to significant decrease of corresponding lateral variations in shear velocity and a better agreement in phase and amplitude of the upper mantle degree 2 pattern with that observed in the geoid this study shows that it is important to consider correcting presently available upper mantle tomographic models for the effects of intrinsic attenuation at long periods before performing any comparison with short period data or other geophysical parameters

geophysical evidence for dewatering and deformation processes in the odp leg 170 area offshore costa rica abstract we use a combination of borehole data from ocean drilling program odp leg 170 and multichannel seismic reflection mcs data to quantify thickness changes in underthrust sediments away from the boreholes sediments thrust beneath the upper plate at convergent margins may be more rapidly loaded than in any other environment depending on the porosity and permeability of the available fluid pathways these sediments can compact and dewater very rapidly as observed in this area offshore the nicoya peninsula costa rica rapid thinning and dewatering was previously interpreted in this area from mcs data but the lack of velocity data in this deep water environment caused ambiguity in the estimates of thickness change we employ a non linear inversion technique using detailed density data primarily logs and some laboratory measurements and coincident mcs data to create 1d synthetic seismograms and detailed velocity functions at three odp drill sites because only a small part of one hole was logged with a sonic tool and the laboratory measurements significantly underestimate in situ velocities these results provide the most accurate estimate of the velocity profiles we used these velocity functions to depth migrate seven mcs lines in the vicinity of the trench and lower slope spanning a distance of 9 km along strike analysis of the depth migrated images shows that there is significant variation along strike in how the underthrust section compacts which appears to be related to the distribution of normal faults on the cocos plate we interpret that preferentially rapid dewatering in the upper part of the underthrust section may lead to deformation below the original decollement and detachments at deeper stratigraphic levels

global love wave phase velocity variation and its significance to plate tectonics abstract global love wave phase velocity variation was constructed for periods between 80 and 200 s by using approximately 9000 paths from 971 earthquakes with m 5 5 the data set was from gdsn and geoscope networks between 1980 and 1987 we examined both the spherical harmonic expansion method and the block parameterization method with a simple constant damping parameter approach synthetic tests showed that more accurate results were obtained by the block parameterization method than by the spherical harmonic expansion method we adopted the block inversion method with a nearly equal area block 5 5 near the equator discretization the general pattern of the resulting maps were consistent with previous global and local studies with a discretization of 5 by 5 the maps were detailed enough to test some plate tectonic models for the pacific atlantic and indian oceans surface wave velocities increased smoothly to plate ages older than 100 ma simple forward modeling showed that seismic phase velocity variation with a continuous thickening of lithosphere up to about 150 ma fits the present observation disagreeing with the model deduced from the heat flow and ocean depth data which change variations at about 60 80 ma the seismic phase velocity variations in different oceans showed systematic differences at younger ages and convergence beyond 100 ma the difference at younger ages implies a failure of scaling derived from a simple thermal boundary layer model for oceanic plates age seismic phase velocity relationships on each side of ridges were also examined and asymmetric velocity variations were found which suggests differences in thermal states from one side of the ridge to the other in order to further examine the thermal state of the lithosphere average age phase velocity relations were established for each ocean and subtracted from phase velocity variation maps the results indicated broad low velocity regions in the south pacific super swell region the south and west indian ocean and high velocity regions east of the east pacific rise and in the north to northeast indian ocean the results reflect the asymmetry of phase velocity variation about ridges there is some correlation between hot spot locations and low velocity anomalies but additional large scale thermal anomalies exist under old oceanic plate

crustal structure of the middle american trench off costa rica from wide angle seismic data off costa rica seismic wide angle experiments were made using marine seismic sources of high shot density and ocean bottom hydrophones obh and land stations for recording three profiles perpendicular to the middle american trench mat and one parallel to it are presented here the coverage from closely spaced obh and structural constraints from the coincident near vertical reflection seismic survey provided detailed velocity depth distributions over 4 0 km s velocities were found directly underlying the thick continental margin sediment in a margin wedge that extends from below the coastal area seaward within 10 km from the mat axis the interpretation of the wide angle data required a low velocity zone lvz between the upper and lower plate indicating its nature as subducted and underplated sediment the velocity depth distributions support the hypothesis that the continental margin wedge off costa rica is most likely an offshore extension of the nicoya complex ophiolitic rocks which are exposed along the coast the subduction of the sediments seems very efficient and the accretionary prism appears to be confined to the lower slope

compaction and dewatering processes of the oceanic sediments in the costa rica and barbados subduction zones estimates from in situ physical property measurements abstract during ocean drilling program legs 170 and 171a logging while drilling lwd tools were deployed on the costa rica and barbados subduction margins high quality density resistivity and natural ray logs were acquired across the decollement zones on both margins based on a new method of layer by layer correlation of the logs changes in thickness and volume between incoming and subducted or accreted sediments are determined with 15 m resolution and 1 accuracy the change in sediment thickness and volume generally decreases with depth however this change strongly depends on the lithology siliceous layers such as diatomaceous and radiolarian clay tend to be fluid bearing and the stratigraphic position of such zones is a critical factor in the fate of the subducted sediment section on the costa rica margin the sediment section on the cocos plate is underthrust intact beneath the toe of the caribbean plate with no frontal offscraping where a siliceous fluid bearing zone is present only in the upper part of the section on the barbados margin a layer of radiolarian clay exists providing a narrow zone of mechanical weakness and anomalously high dewatering in the middle of the sediment section this layer divides the sediments that are subducted from those that are accreted accreted and subducted sediments show different compaction styles accreted sediments are characterized by rapid compaction with vertical thickening whereas subducted sediments are characterized by slow compaction with vertical flattening the vertical thickening of the accreted sediments is due to horizontal tectonic compaction and contributes to the vertical thickening of the accretionary prism as a whole in the early stages of deformation dewatering flux is calculated by the volume change of the sediment sequences across the trench the dewatering flux computed from the lwd data provides an estimate of the minimum fluid flux in the subduction zone and is significantly greater than the flux estimated from laboratory experiments because of meter scale fluid conduits which influence the downhole logs but not the centimeter scale sample measurements

a climatology of warm season cloud patterns over east asia based on gms infrared brightness temperature observations abstract in the present study hourly infrared ir brightness temperatures observed by the geostationary meteorological satellite gms over the region 20 40 n 95 145 e in may august 1998 2001 are used to compile a climatology of warm season cloud precipitation episodes over east asia with a goal to better understand the characteristics of warm season convection and the behavior of these episodes results are compared with those obtained in north america using radar derived data the convection in east asia similar to that in north america is shown to also exhibit coherent patterns and characteristics of propagating events in the longitude time hovmoller space with a preferred phase speed of 10 25 m s 1 considerably faster than warm season synoptic scale waves near the eastern edge of the tibetan plateau convection was most active with a strong diurnal signal peaking in late afternoon or early evening then propagating eastward the zonal span and duration of episodes could reach 3000 km and

three dimensional modelling of upper mantle structure under the pacific ocean and surrounding area summary long period 75 250 s fundamental mode love and rayleigh waves are inverted for the seismic velocity variations in the upper mantle under the pacific ocean and surrounding area the data are inverted to map the regional variation of phase velocity and then the velocity structure of the upper mantle no a priori regionalization is used in this study and the lateral heterogeneity is expanded horizontally into blocks lo x 10 to estimate the reliability of the velocity distribution we have calculated the resolving kernels in the central nw ne and sw regions the resolving kernels have fairly sharp peaks in the se region however resolution is not so good the results show good correlation with surface tectonics in the velocity map shields and ridges are the major features in the depth interval 50 100km anomalies associated with the east pacific rise and the shields persist to 300 km at 400 and 500 km high velocity anomalies appear under the eastern and southern pacific ridges and a low velocity anomaly appears beneath australia the present study provides better resolution than previous studies because of the better path coverage for example a large low velocity anomaly emerges under hawaii down to the depth of 200 km for sh velocity the horizontal extent of this anomaly is comparable to the sue of the hawaiian swell this feature supports that the hawaii hotspot is an isolated truly anomalous feature in the pacific ocean

elevated fluid pressure and fault zone dilation inferred from seismic models of the northern barbados ridge decollement in 1992 a large volume of three dimensional seismic reflection data were acquired in a 5 25 km area across the toe of the barbados accretionary complex that covers the deep sea drilling project leg 78a and ocean drilling program legs 110 and 156 drilling sites these data are used to examine the acoustic character of the decollement seismic reflection and to qualitatively and quantitatively characterize fluid pressures within the fault zone seismic models have been constructed across a 6 km region of the decollement where it has been mapped as a moderate to bright polarity reversed reflection the models show that this segment of the decollement reflection is caused by a low velocity interval usually 12 16 m thick the top of the low velocity interval appears to be a sharp boundary that requires a decrease in velocity from 1 8 km s to between 1 7 and 1 65 km s with some localized bright reflections with an even lower velocity of 1 6 km s the base of the low velocity layer is less certain from modeling the base consists of either a velocity increase that is usually approximately half the velocity contrast at the top of the layer or the velocity increase is equal to the contrast at the top of the layer but distributed over a 10 m thick interval comparison of these results to laboratory experiments on the relationship between fluid pressure and seismic velocity indicates that in this interval of the decollement fluid pressure is at or near lithostatic furthermore the reflection coefficients of the decollement are sufficiently large that some dilation of the fault zone is required the dilation should lead to high fracture zone permeability and explain the observation of a laterally consistent decollement reflection along a 5 km segment of the decollement it is within these segments of the fault that fluid pressure approaches lithostatic and significantly reduces fault strength

role of north indian ocean air sea interaction in summer monsoon intraseasonal oscillation abstractair sea coupling processes over the north indian ocean associated with the indian summer monsoon intraseasonal oscillation miso are investigated observations show that miso convection an