self organization in the thermomechanical flow of ice sheets this paper uses a three dimensional thermomechanical ice sheet model to investigate the initiation and evolution of ice streams within ice sheets ice streams are distinguished within general ice sheet flow by their relatively fast of the order of kilometers per year velocity and are thought to be crucial in determining the response of ice sheets to climatic change we show that streaming can arise solely as a consequence of internal feedback between ice sheet flow and temperature inhomogeneities in topography and or geology are not therefore necessary conditions for ice stream development this spatial patterning replaces the large scale surging reported from previous modeling work in one horizontal dimension we suggest that surging is restricted to situations where ice flow is channelized e g valley glaciers and that it is replaced by streaming where horizontal ice flow is unconstrained ice sheets the ice streams in some of our experiments show switching behavior reminiscent of that known from the siple coast ice streams west antarctica the cause appears to be the competition for ice discharge and drainage basin area between adjacent ice streams this may lead to the gradual reduction of a stream s discharge below the threshold necessary to generate enough frictional heat to maintain warm viscous ice at the ice stream bed in this case the stream will stagnate abruptly which then prompts localized ice thickening and the initiation of a new stream in a different location

a low order model of the heinrich event cycle if heinrich events result from free oscillations in the size and basal melting conditions of the laurentide ice sheet a rigorous quantitative analysis of ice sheet physics should describe their dynamics to explore this possibility i exploit two characteristic timescales which arise from ice sheet physics to construct a relaxation oscillator model of the north atlantic s heinrich events the numerical implementation of this model confirms the notion that the periodicity of heinrich events approximately 7 000 years is determined by the gross properties of a steady glacial climate e g an annual average sea level temperature of 10 c and an adiabatic lapse rate

dynamic source inversion of the m6 5 intermediate depth zumpango earthquake in central mexico a parallel genetic algorithm we introduce a method for imaging the earthquake source dynamics from the inversion of ground motion records based on a parallel genetic algorithm the source model follows an elliptical patch approach and uses the staggered grid split node method to simulate the earthquake dynamics a statistical analysis is used to estimate errors in both inverted and derived source parameters synthetic inversion tests reveal that the average rupture speed vr the rupture area and the stress drop may be determined with formal errors of 30 12 and 10 respectively in contrast derived parameters such as the radiated energy er the radiation efficiency r and the fracture energy g have larger errors around 70 40 and 25 respectively we applied the method to the mw 6 5 intermediate depth 62 km normal faulting earthquake of 11 december 2011 in guerrero mexico inferred values of 29 2 6 2 mpa and r 0 26 0 1 are significantly higher and lower respectively than those of typical subduction thrust events fracture energy is large so that more than 73 of the available potential energy for the dynamic process of faulting was deposited in the focal region i e g 14 4 3 5 1014j producing a slow rupture process vr vs 0 47 0 09 despite the relatively high energy radiation er 0 54 0 31 1015 j and energy moment ratio er m0 5 7 10 5 it is interesting to point out that such a slow and inefficient rupture along with the large stress drop in a small focal region are features also observed in both the 1994 deep bolivian earthquake and the seismicity of the intermediate depth bucaramanga nest

a variational approach to ice stream flow ice sheets are susceptible to the formation of ice streams or narrow bands of fast flowing ice whose high velocities are caused by rapid sliding at the contact between ice and the underlying bed based on recent geophysical work which has shown that the sliding motion of ice streams may be described by a coulomb friction law we investigate how the location of ice streams depends on the geometry of an ice sheet and on the mechanical properties of the underlying bed more generally this problem is relevant to the flow of thin films with coulomb or solid friction laws applied at their base by analogy with friction problems in elasticity we construct a variational formulation for the free boundary between ice streams where bed failure occurs and the surrounding ice ridges where there is little or no sliding this variational problem takes the form of a non coercive variational inequality and we show that solutions exist provided a force and moment balance condition is satisfied in that case solutions are also unique except under certain specialized circumstances which are unlikely to arise for a real ice sheet further we show how the variational formulation of the ice flow problem can be exploited to calculate numerical solutions and to simulate the effect of changing ice geometry and bed friction on the location and velocities of streaming flow lastly we study the effect of ice shelf buttressing on the flow of ice streams whose spatial extent is determined by the yield stress distribution of the bed in line with previous studies of ice shelf buttressing we find that the removal of an ice shelf can cause an ice stream feeding the ice shelf to speed up considerably which underlines the important role ice shelves may play in controlling the dynamics of marine ice sheets

past and future grounding line retreat of the west antarctic ice sheet the history of deglaciation of the west antarctic ice sheet wais gives clues about its future southward grounding line migration was dated past three locations in the ross sea embayment results indicate that most recession occurred during the middle to late holocene in the absence of substantial sea level or climate forcing current grounding line retreat may reflect ongoing ice recession that has been under way since the early holocene if so the wais could continue to retreat even in the absence of further external forcing

seismic structure of the lithosphere from teleseismic converted arrivals observed at small arrays in the southern sierra nevada and vicinity california 21 well distributed teleseisms 30 to 100 distance were recorded by mixed broad band bb and short period sp seismic arrays at mineral king mk and horseshoe meadow hm in the southern sierra nevada and at darwin plateau dp between the inyo and argus ranges these arrays permit identification and separation of direct p and s arrivals reflections from topography scattered energy and arrivals from different back azimuths multipath arrivals p to s conversions can be identified from beamed bb or sp seismograms least squares time domain processing recovered single event receiver functions from these beamed seismograms converted phases attributable to the moho are clear and uncomplicated at dp ps p times of 3 9 4 2 s correspond to crustal thicknesses of 31 33 km assuming a mean p crustal velocity of 6 2 km s and a poisson s ratio of 0 255 ps p times at hm eastern sierra are 3 9 4 6 s 32 37 km excepting some unusual seismograms from events at back azimuths of 225 239 mk western sierra times for ps p show a strong e w asymmetry 3 9 4 1 s 31 33 km from the east and 4 8 5 3 s 39 42 km from the west the mk arrivals from the east are multiple and substantially weaker by comparison with hm and dp these results confirm the absence of a thick crust under the southern high sierra inferred from both a refraction experiment coincident with this experiment and some earlier studies at dp the moho event follows an intracrustal negative polarity event defining the top of an s wave low velocity zone this feature dips west under the sierran crest at hm but is absent farther west at mk this feature appears to be a manifestation of extensional strain and thus indicates that the surficially undeformed sierra overlies a tectonized lower crust sub moho energy is absent under the basin and range dp but is conspicuous under the high sierra at positive arrivals 7 3 s mk and 9 s hm after the p these arrivals might be from the base of a low velocity low density upper mantle body supporting the sierra

a 3 d model of the crust and uppermost mantle beneath the central and western us by joint inversion of receiver functions and surface wave dispersion 1 rayleigh wave phase velocity maps from ambient noise and earthquake data are inverted jointly with receiver functions observed at 828 stations from the usarray transportable array west of 100 w longitude for data recorded in the years 2005 through 2010 to produce a 3 d model of shear wave speeds beneath the central and western us to a depth of 150 km eikonal tomography is applied to ambient noise data to produce about 300 000 rayleigh wave phase speed curves and helmholtz tomography is applied to data following 1550 ms 5 0 earthquakes so that rayleigh wave dispersion maps are constructed from 8 to 80 s period with associated uncertainties across the region harmonic stripping generates back azimuth independent receiver functions with uncertainty estimates for each of the stations a nonlinear bayesian monte carlo method is used to estimate a distribution of shear wave speed vs models beneath each station by jointly interpreting surface wave dispersion and receiver functions and their uncertainties the assimilation of receiver functions improves the vertical resolution of the model by reducing the range of estimated moho depths improving the determination of the shear velocity jump across moho and improving the resolution of the depth of anomalies in the uppermost mantle a great variety of geological and tectonic features are revealed in the 3 d model that form the basis for future detailed local to regional scale analysis and interpretation

crustal shear wave velocity structure of the western united states inferred from ambient seismic noise and earthquake data 1 surface wave dispersion measurements from ambient seismic noise and array based measurements from teleseismic earthquakes observed with the earthscope usarray transportable array ta are inverted using a monte carlo method for a 3 d vs model of the crust and uppermost mantle beneath the western united states the combination of data from these methods produces exceptionally broadband dispersion information from 6 to 100 s period which constrains shear wave velocity structures in the crust and uppermost mantle to a depth of more than 100 km the high lateral resolution produced by the ta network and the broadbandedness of the dispersion information motivate the question of the appropriate parameterization for a 3 d model particularly for the crustal part of the model we show that a relatively simple model in which vs increases monotonically with depth in the crust can fit the data well across more than 90 of the study region except in eight discrete areas where greater crustal complexity apparently exists the regions of greater crustal complexity are the olympic peninsula the mendocinotriple junction the yakima fold belt the southern cascadia back arc the great central valley of california the salton trough the snake river plain and the wasatch mountains we also show that a strong rayleigh love discrepancy exists across much of the western united states which can be resolved by introducing radial anisotropy in both the mantle and notably the crust we focus our analysis on demonstrating the existence of crustal radial anisotropy and primarily discuss the crustal part of the isotropic model that results from the radially anisotropic model by voigt averaging model uncertainties from the monte carlo inversion are used to identify robust isotropic features in the model the uppermost mantle beneath the western united states is principally composed of four large scale shear wave velocity features but lower crustal velocity structure exhibits far greater heterogeneity we argue that these lower crustal structures are predominantly caused by interactions with the uppermost mantle including the intrusion and underplating of mafic mantle materials and the thermal depression of wave speeds caused by conductive heating from the mantle upper and middle crustal wave speeds are generally correlated and notable anomalies are inferred to result from terrane accretion at the continental margin and volcanic intrusions

vs and density structure beneath the colorado plateau constrained by gravity anomalies and joint inversions of receiver function and phase velocity data 1 the colorado plateau is a physiographic province in the western us with an average elevation of 1 9 km where in contrast to neighboring provinces there is little evidence of large scale tectonic deformation or magmatism recent availability of earthscope usarray seismic data allow us to better examine the crust and upper mantle structure beneath the region and test proposed explanations for the plateau s uplift and relative stability using phase velocities for fundamental mode rayleigh waves and p receiver functions we perform over 800 joint inversions for 1 d shear wave velocity vs profiles sampling the plateau and surrounding regions down to 150 km depth we image a sharp change in crustal thickness at the western edge of the colorado plateau with a more gradual increase eastward moving into the rocky mountains a relatively thick 100 km lithosphere beneath the plateau extends into the rocky mountains to the north we use empirical scaling relations to estimate densities from our vs results and predict the associated gravity anomalies which are inconsistent with the observed distribution of the bouguer gravity anomalies we somewhat reconcile the prediction and observations by assuming that lateral density variations below 50 km can be ignored and the lithospheric root is therefore neutrally buoyant while there is some evidence for small scale convection and lithospheric removal at its edges the shape of the lithospheric mantle anomaly is consistent with a large scale uplift of the plateau by heating since removal of the farallon slab we conclude that the lithospheric root is key to the long term stability of the colorado plateau leading to a colder stronger crust

spontaneous generation of pure ice streams via flow instability role of longitudinal shear stresses and subglacial till 1 a significant portion of the ice discharge in ice sheets is drained through ice streams with subglacial sediment till acting as a lubricant the known importance of horizontal friction in shear margins to ice stream dynamics suggests a critical role of longitudinal stresses the effects of subglacial till and longitudinal stresses on the stability of an ice sheet flow are studied by linear stability analysis of an idealized ice till model in two horizontal dimensions a power law viscous constitutive relation is used explicitly including longitudinal shear stresses the till which has compressible viscous rheology affects the ice flow through bottom friction we examine the possibility that pure ice streams develop via a spontaneous instability of ice flow we demonstrate that this model can be made intrinsically unstable for a seemingly relevant range of parameters and that the wavelengths and growth rates that correspond to the most unstable modes are in rough agreement with observed pure ice streams instabilities occur owing to basal friction and meltwater production at the ice till interface the most unstable wavelength arise because of selective dissipation of both short and long perturbation scales longitudinal stress gradients stabilize short transverse wavelengths while nye diffusion stabilizes long transverse wavelengths the selection of an intermediate unstable wavelength occurs however only for certain parameter and perturbation structure choices these results do not change qualitatively for a newtonian ice flow law indicating no significant role to shear thinning although this may very well be due to the restrictive assumptions of the model and analysis

results from the eismint model intercomparison the effects of thermomechanical coupling this paper discusses results from the second phase of the european ice sheet modelling initiative eismint it reports the intercompartison of ten operational ice sheet models and uses a series of experiments to examine the implications of thermomechanical coupling for model behaviour a schematic circular ice sheet is used in the work which investigates both steady states and the response to stepped changes in climate the major finding is that radial symmetry implied in the experimental design can under certain circumstances break down with the formation of distinct regularly spaced spokes of cold ice which extended from the interior of the ice sheet outward to the surrounding zone of basal melt these features also manifest themselves in the thickness and velocity distributions predicted by the models they appear to be a common feature to all of the models which took part in the intercomparison and may stem from interactions between ice temperature flow and surface form the exact nature of these features varies between models and their existence appears to be controlled by the overall thermal regimne of the ice sheet a second result is that there is considerable agreement between the models in their predictions of global scale response to imposed climate change

large scale ice flow over a viscous basal sediment theory and application to ice stream b antarctica recent seismic studies of ice stream b antarctica and field analysis of mid latitude glacial deposits suggest that deformable basal sediments e g water saturated till are important in determining ice sheet flow if the ratio of till viscosity to effective ice viscosity is small vertical shear associated with horizontal flow is confined to the deforming bed alone ice flow over a deformable bed is thus akin to that of floating ice shelves because ice shelves flow over inviscid seawater for some antarctic ice streams and possibly for portions of the late wisconsin ice sheets in north america and eurasia basal drag associated with deforming basal sediment does not induce significant vertical gradients of horizontal velocity instead basal drag affects the flow as if it were a horizontal body force balanced by longitudinal and transverse deviatoric stress gradients comparison of the observed flow of ice stream b to finite element simulations incorporating a viscous basal till suggest that a simple till theology is sufficient to explain the current velocity profile these simulations also highlight the importance of horizontal deviatoric stress in regions where driving stress and basal stress do not locally balance while bed deformation is critical to ice stream existence sensitivity tests suggest that ice shelf back pressure is still a crucial control affecting ice stream response to atmospheric and oceanic climate

shear wave velocity structure in the northern basin and range province from the combined analysis of receiver functions and surface waves a new method based on the joint inversion of receiver functions and surface wave phase velocities results in well determined shear velocity structures that are consistent with the compressional wave structure gravity heat flow and elevation data in the northern basin and range this new inversion method takes advantage of average velocity information present in the surface wave method and differential velocity information contained in the receiver function method thus min imizing the nonuniqueness problem that results from the velocity depth trade off an unusually thick 38 kin and relatively faster crust and upper mantle are found in central and eastern nevada compared to the thin 28 to 34 km and slower crust and upper mantle of the western basin and range we interpret the regions of thicker and faster crust and upper mantle as zones that have undergone less cenozoic ex tension relative to the surrounding regions to the west and north the thick crust and consequently greater depth to the dense mantle material is consistent with the gravity low pattern in central and eastern nevada simple gravity modeling shows both local and regional isostatic compensation occur within 40 km of the surface indicating a near classical airy type of compensation in the province we analyze in detail the shear wave s wave velocity model derived from the receiver functions at station bmn and compressional wave p wave velocity models derived from the 1986 passcal experiment in northwestern nevada the most interesting feature of these models is the presence of negative velocity gradients in the s wave model with no corresponding velocity decrease in the p wave models between depths of 10 and 24 km this combined velocity model may be explained by high pore fluid pressures at these depths this model favors a layered fluid porosity model proposed in the literature to explain extensive middle to lower crust conti nental seismic reflections and high electrical conductivity an upper mantle grada tional low velocity zone is present between 32 and 38 km in the s wave model this upper mantle shear wave low velocity zone is consistent with partial melt which may be the source material for magmatic underplating in this region

stress balances of ice streams in a vertically integrated higher order formulation one challenge in improving our understanding of ice stream dynamics is to develop models of the spatial and temporal transition from ice sheet to ice stream flow we address this with a new vertically integrated higher order formulation for ice sheet dynamics that captures the leading order physics of low aspect ratio viscous fluid flow regardless of the amount of slip at the bed the theory introduces a parameter which approximates the ratio of the basal stress to the shear stress scale providing a measure of the relative importance of sliding and internal deformation our model is able to simultaneously describe the dynamics of both a slow moving sheet and rapidly flowing ice streams to test the formulation we apply a triple valued sliding law as the basal boundary condition and obtain numerical solutions that can be compared with previous work we investigate the sensitivity of flow regimes and shear margin width to parameter variation deriving a scaling for the latter we also consider a double valued sliding law which enforces a constant low basal stress beneath the ice stream comparisons of the resultant stress fields illustrate the different stress balances that can maintain

a continuum mixture model of ice stream thermomechanics in the laurentide ice sheet 2 application to the hudson strait ice stream episodic exportations of ice rafted debris to the north atlantic in the late pleistocene suggest quasiperiodic ice streaming or surging activity on the northeastern margin of the laurentide ice sheet much of this efflux of ice may originate from an ice stream issuing from hudson strait and tapping into core regions of the laurentide in hudson bay labrador and the foxe basin applying the continuum mixture theory outlined by marshall and clarke this issue we model the thermomechanical evolution of the hudson strait ice stream in a three dimensional finite difference model of the laurentide ice sheet our simulations focus on internal dynamics of the ice stream under thermal regulation of basal flow we find surge cycles of stream activity interspersed with quiescent periods where the ice stream is frozen to the bed modeled surge durations vary from 105 to 3260 years while surge periodicities range from 585 to 22 410 years with pervasively warm or cold internal temperature distributions in the ice ice streams can also establish modes of permanent activity or inactivity under thermal regulation our most vigorous ice streams produce peak values of approximately 0 03 sv of freshwater flux to the north atlantic from basal meltwater and iceberg production associated ice stream velocities in this maximum case approach 6700 m yr 1 the total ice volume mobilized in a single surge event is equivalent to a global sea level rise of 0 04m in the most tranquil surge and almost 0 6m in the most extreme case these velocities and sea level impacts are an order of magnitude less than those predicted by macayeal 1993a b and only our most exuberant streams approach the iceberg flux estimates of dowdeswell et al 1995 we propose that the sediment load of icebergs emanating from hudson strait in a surge event may exceed expectations from contemporary icebergs

complex and variable crustal and uppermost mantle seismic anisotropy in the western united states deformation in the crust and mantle measured using seismic anisotropy is poorly constrained in the western united states because of inconsistencies in the existing data a three dimensional model that reconciles these discrepancies reveals that seismic anisotropy in the crust correlates with different geological provinces but is unrelated to anisotropy in the underlying mantle

complex subduction and small scale convection revealed by body wave tomography of the western united states upper mantle abstract new high resolution p and s wave tomography of the united states upper mantle from the pacific coast to the great plains reveals strong multi scale heterogeneity closely correlated with tectonic and magmatic activity we invert teleseismic travel time residuals from the earthscope transportable array and more than 1700 additional temporary and permanent stations for 3 d velocity perturbations to a depth of 1000 km the inversion uses recent advances in western u s crust models to better isolate the mantle component of travel time residuals and frequency dependent 3 d sensitivity kernels to map travel time residuals measured in multiple frequency bands into velocity structure in addition to separate v p and v s models we jointly invert the two datasets for v p v s perturbations by imposing a smoothness constraint on the ln v s ln v p field the joint inversion helps us identify regions where partial melt is probable the amplitude of v p v s and v p v s variations is greatest in the upper 200 km of the mantle and the form of velocity anomalies suggests a provincially heterogeneous lithosphere and the occurrence of widespread small scale convection partially molten mantle is inferred beneath yellowstone and the eastern snake river plain srp the salton trough and the clear lake volcanic field the inferred depth extent of partial melt is consistent with a generally hydrated upper mantle and elevated temperatures beneath the eastern srp and yellowstone despite continuous subduction since the cretaceous the distribution of sub lithospheric high velocity anomalies is dissected similar to other recent studies based on our new tomography models western u s geologic history and plate tectonic reconstructions we infer patchy and incomplete removal of the flat subducting laramide slab and slab tearing associated with eocene accretion in the northwestern u s

the influence of sub glacial bed evolution on ice extent a model based evaluation of the last glacial maximum pukaki glacier new zealand abstract a potential complication in using glacier extent to estimate paleoclimatic conditions is the influence of glacier bed evolution on changes in ice extent over time here we examine this issue through model based reconstructions of the last glacial maximum lgm pukaki glacier southern alps new zealand whose lgm extents are exceptionally well defined by lateral and terminal moraines using the well dated moraine limits as an empirical constraint on maximum ice extents we employ a one dimensional glacier flowline model driven by a mass balance model in order to evaluate the influence of climate and glacier bed profile on the extent of the lgm pukaki glacier the lgm glacier bed is buried by lateglacial and post glacial sediment so we calculate bed profiles using a modified version of the one dimensional model and available geologic constraints a best fit to the moraine record occurs with a lgm temperature of 7 8 c cooler than present with precipitation ranging from 80 to 100 of present levels modeling of the bed profile evolution indicates that bed changes alone could account for kilometer scale changes in glacier width and length

consistent generation of ice streams via thermo viscous instabilities modulated by membrane stresses accurate computation of ice stream location and dynamics is a key aspiration for theoretical glaciology ice sheet models with thermo viscous coupling have been shown to exhibit stream like instabilities using shallow ice approximation mechanics but the location and width of these streams depends on the numerical implementation and are not unique we present results from thermo viscously coupled ice sheet models incorporating membrane stresses spontaneous generation of fast flowing linear features still occurs under certain parameter regimes with computed stream widths between 20 km to 100 km comparable with observations these features are maintained as the grid size is decreased the thermo viscous feedback mechanism that generates ice streams under the shallow ice approximation still operates now selecting a unique stream size computations of thermo viscous ice flows should include membrane stresses when the bed is approximately flat e g parts of antarctica and former ice sheets of the northern hemisphere previous calculations of spontaneous ice stream generation using the shallow ice approximation should be reassessed citation hindmarsh r c a 2009 consistent generation of ice streams via thermo viscous instabilities modulated by membrane stresses geophys res lett 36 l06502 doi 10 1029 2008gl036877

lithosphere asthenosphere interaction beneath the western united states from the joint inversion of body wave traveltimes and surface wave phase velocities summary the relation between the complex geological history of the western margin of the north american plate and the processes in the mantle is still not fully documented and understood several pre usarray local seismic studies showed how the characteristics of key geological features such as the colorado plateau and the yellowstone snake river plains are linked to their deep mantle structure recent body wave models based on the deployment of the high density large aperture usarray have provided far more details on the mantle structure while surface wave tomography ballistic waves and noise correlations informs us on the shallow structure here we combine constraints from these two data sets to image and study the link between the geology of the western united states the shallow structure of the earth and the convective processes in mantle our multiphase dna10 s model provides new constraints on the extent of the archean lithosphere imaged as a large deeply rooted fast body that encompasses the stable great plains and a large portion of the northern and central rocky mountains widespread slow anomalies are found in the lower crust and upper mantle suggesting that low density rocks isostatically sustain part of the high topography of the western united states the yellowstone anomaly is imaged as a large slow body rising from the lower mantle intruding the overlying lithosphere and controlling locally the seismicity and the topography the large e w extent of the usarray used in this study allows imaging the slab graveyard a sequence of farallon fragments aligned with the currently subducting juan de fuca slab north of the mendocino triple junction the lithospheric root of the colorado plateau has apparently been weakened and partly removed through dripping the distribution of the slower regions around the colorado plateau and other rigid blocks follows closely the trend of cenozoic volcanic fields and ancient lithospheric sutures suggesting that the later exert a control on the locus of magmato tectonic activity today the dna velocity models are available for download and slicing at http dna berkeley edu

antarctic elevation change from 1992 to 1996 satellite radar altimeter measurements show that the average elevation of the antarctic ice sheet interior fell by 0 9 0 5 centimeters per year from 1992 to 1996 if the variability of snowfall observed in antarctic ice cores is allowed for the mass imbalance of the interior this century is only 0 06 0 08 of the mean mass accumulation rate

rocky mountain evolution tying continental dynamics of the rocky mountains and deep probe seismic experiments with receiver functions 1 in this study we have determined the crustal structure using three different receiver function methods using data collected from the northern transect of the continental dynamics of the rocky mountains cd rom experiment the resulting migrated image and crustal thickness determinations confirm and refine prior crustal thickness measurements based on the cd rom and deep probe experiment data sets the new results show a very distinct and thick lower crustal layer beneath the archean wyoming province in addition we are able to show its termination at 42n latitude which provides a seismic tie between the cd rom and deep probe seismic experiments and thus completes a continuous north south transect extending from new mexico into alberta canada this new tie is particularly important because it occurs close to a major tectonic boundary the cheyenne belt between an archean craton and a proterozoic terrane we used two different stacking techniques based on a similar concept but using two different ways to estimate uncertainties furthermore we used receiver function migration and common conversion point ccp stacking techniques the combined interpretation of all our results shows 1 crustal thinning in southern wyoming 2 strong northward crustal thickening beginning in central wyoming 3 the presence of an unusually thick and high velocity lower crust beneath the wyoming province and 4 the abrupt termination of this lower crustal layer north of the cheyenne belt at 42n latitude

broadband ambient noise surface wave tomography across the united states 1 this study presents surface wave dispersion maps across the contiguous united states determined using seismic ambient noise two years of ambient noise data are used from march 2003 through february 2005 observed at 203 broadband seismic stations in the us southern canada and northern mexico cross correlations are computed between all station pairs to produce empirical green functions at most azimuths across the us coherent rayleigh wave signals exist in the empirical green functions implying that ambient noise in the frequency band of this study 5 100 s period is sufficiently isotropically distributed in azimuth to yield largely unbiased dispersion measurements rayleigh and love wave group and phase velocity curves are measured together with associated uncertainties determined from the temporal variability of the measurements a sufficient number of measurements 2000 is obtained between 8 and 25 s period for love waves and 8 and 70 s period for rayleigh waves to produce tomographic dispersion maps both phase and group velocity maps are presented in these period bands resolution is estimated to be better than 100 km across much of the us from 8 40 s period for rayleigh waves and 8 20 s period for love waves which is unprecedented in a study at this spatial scale at longer and shorter periods resolution degrades as the number of coherent signals diminishes the dispersion maps agree well with each other and with known geological and tectonic features and in addition provide new information about structures in the crust and uppermost mantle beneath much of the us

velocity and stress fields in grounded glaciers a simple algorithm for including deviatoric stress gradients a new and efficient algorithm for computing the three dimensional stress and velocity fields in grounded glaciers includes the role of deviatoric stress gradients a consistent approximation of first order in the aspect of ratio of the ice mass gives a set of eight field equations for the five stress and three velocity components and the corresponding boundary conditions a coordinate transformation mapping the local ice thickness on to unity and approximating the derivatives in the horizontal direction by centred finite differences yields five ordinary differential and three algebraic equations this allows use of the method of lines starting the integration with prescribed stress and velocity components at the base and a simple iteration procedure converges rapidly the algorithm can lie used for a wide range of stress strain rate relations as long as strain only depends on deviatoric and shear stresses and on temperature sensitivity tests using synthetic and realistic ice geometries show the relevance of normal deviatoric stresses in the solutions for the velocity components even for ice sheets stress and velocity fields may deviate substantially from the widely used shallow ice approximation

seismic evidence for widespread western us deep crustal deformation caused by extension morgan moschetti and colleagues use ambient noise tomography data from the western united states to show that strong radial seismic anisotropy exists in the deep crust confined mainly to the geological provinces that have undergone significant extension during the cenozoic era since about 65 million years ago the coincidence of crustal radial anisotropy with these extensional provinces supports the hypothesis that the deep crust within these regions has undergone widespread and relatively uniform strain in response to crustal thinning and extension here a method of seismic wave imaging known as ambient noise tomography is used to generate high resolution images of seismic wave speeds in the crust and uppermost mantle the observations reveal strong and uniform anisotropy where waves travel through rock at different speeds depending on direction in the deep crust in areas of the western united states that have undergone significant extension during the past 65 million years laboratory experiments have established that many of the materials comprising the earth are strongly anisotropic in terms of seismic wave speeds1 observations of azimuthal2 3 and radial4 5 anisotropy in the upper mantle are attributed to the lattice preferred orientation of olivine caused by the shear strains associated with deformation and provide some of the most direct evidence for deformation and flow within the earth s interior although observations of crustal radial anisotropy would improve our understanding of crustal deformation and flow patterns resulting from tectonic processes large scale observations have been limited to regions of particularly thick crust6 here we show that observations from ambient noise tomography in the western united states reveal strong deep middle to lower crustal radial anisotropy that is confined mainly to the geological provinces that have undergone significant extension during the cenozoic era since 65 myr ago 7 8 the coincidence of crustal radial anisotropy with the extensional provinces of the western united states suggests that the radial anisotropy results from the lattice preferred orientation of anisotropic crustal minerals caused by extensional deformation these observations also provide support for the hypothesis that the deep crust within these regions has undergone widespread and relatively uniform strain in response to crustal thinning and extension9 10 11

deep probe imaging the roots of western north america analysis of the lithoprobe deep probe and southern alberta refraction experiment data sets focusing on the region between deep probe shots 43 and 55 has resulted in a continental scale velocity structural model of the lithosphere of platformal western laurentia reaching depths of 150 km three major lithospheric blocks were investigated i the hearne province a typical continental archean cratonic province lying beneath the western canada sedimentary basin ii the wyoming province an even older block of phanerozoic modified archean crust with an enigmatic lower lithosphere and iii the yavapai mazatzal province proterozoic terranes underlying the colorado plateau and southern rocky mountains in this study the northern two of these regions are investigated with a modified ray theoretical traveltime inversion routine that respects the spherical geometry of the earth the resulting crustal velocity structure combined with supporting geological and geophysical data reveals that the medicine hat block mhb lying between the hearne and wyoming provinces is a third independent archean crustal block the subcrustal lithosphere along the profile is homogeneous in velocity structure but two significant northward dipping reflectors are apparent and interpreted as relic subduction zones associated with sutures between the three archean blocks the hearne crust is typical of an archean shield or platform both in its thickness of 34 50 km and its seismic velocity structure the crust of the archean mhb and wyoming province which ranges in thickness from 49 to 60 km includes a 10 30 km thick high velocity layer interpreted to be proterozoic in age such a feature is unexpected beneath archean crustal provinces but if the region is considered to be the remanent marginal portion of a larger archean continent then the interpreted proterozoic underplating and lack of an archean lithospheric root can be explained the variable topography along the reflective upper and lower boundaries of this layer especially within the mhb suggests considerable variability in its emplacement and subsequent tectonic history

european ice sheet modelling initiative eismint model intercomparison experiments with first order mechanics 1 the european ice sheet modelling initiative eismint intercomparison experiments with thermomechanical coupling are repeated with an ice sheet model that applies the first order approximation for computing the flow field the experiments impose radially symmetric boundary conditions most of the previous results have shown the loss of implied radial symmetry i e the formation of distinct regularly spaced spokes of cold ice in the simulated basal temperatures a similar result is also observed in the presented first order model results the computed velocity components scatter widely along the marginal grid points this indicates that the spokes may be triggered by the poor representation of the margin with a regular grid where the steep gradients in the surface enhance the numerical errors additionally the generally applied second order discretization scheme tends to decouple even and odd numbered grid points thus leading to wavy solutions with a wavelength of two grid cells these patterns strongly suggest that the loss in radial symmetry is a numerical artifact

stress gradient damping of thermoviscous ice flow instabilities 1 calculations of thermomechanically coupled ice sheet evolution using the shallow ice approximation exhibit the development of fingering instabilities in velocity temperature and thickness which have been argued to resemble and therefore explain ice stream formation however workers have had difficulty in obtaining comparable results it has been suggested that this is due to ill posing of the evolution problem when the shallow ice approximation is used the influence of additional mechanical terms are examined using both the full system and the hybrid lubrication membrane stress approximation the three dimensional equivalent of the longitudinal stress approximation linearization techniques are used to formulate an analytical problem and a numerical eigenvalue problem the analysis shows that the shallow ice approximation gives highly erroneous stability maps for the combination of shorter transverse wavelengths and longer along flow wavelengths i e ice stream dimensions while the lubrication membrane stress approximation and full systems give different but consistent results which remove the ill posing calculations in two horizontal dimensions of thermoviscous coupling using the shallow ice approximation which comprise a large proportion of ice sheet modeling results need reexamination

epicentral location based on rayleigh wave empirical green s functions from ambient seismic noise summary a new method to locate the epicentre of regional seismic events is developed with strengths and limitations complementary to existing location methods this new technique is based on applying empirical green s functions egfs for rayleigh waves between 7 and 15 s period that are determined by cross correlation of ambient noise time series recorded at pairs of seismic receivers the important advantage of this method in comparison with standard procedures based on use of body wave traveltimes is that it does not rely on an earth model rather it is based on interpolating the egfs to arbitrary hypothetical event locations the method is tested by locating well known ground truth crustal events in the western united states magnitude 4 earthquakes in california magnitude 3 earthquakes in utah and a mine collapse as well as locating seismic stations as virtual events in these applications location errors average less than 1 km but are expected to vary with event mechanism and depth numerical simulations show that the method optimizes when source depth is less than 1 km or more than 5 km and when the source mechanism is nearly purely strike slip thrust or normal

time step limits for stable solutions of the ice sheet equation various spatial discretizations for the ice sheet are compared for accuracy against analytical solutions in one and two dimensions the computational efficiency of various iterated and non iterated marching schemes is compared the stability properties of different marching schemes with and without iterations on the non linear equations are compared newton raphson techniques permit the largest time steps a new technique which is based on the fact that the dynamics of unstable iterated maps contain information about where the unstable root lies is shown to improve substantially the performance of picard iteration at a negligible computational cost

processes controlling the downstream evolution of ice rheology in glacier shear margins case study on rutford ice stream west antarctica ice rheology governs how glaciers flow and respond to environmental change the rheology of glacier ice evolves in response to a variety of mechanisms including damage heating melting and the development of crystalline fabric the relative contributions of these rheological mechanisms are not well understood using remotely sensed data and physical models we decouple the influence of each of the aforementioned mechanisms along the margins of rutford ice stream a laterally confined outlet glacier in west antarctica we show that fabric is an important control on ice rheology in the shear margins with an inferred softening effect consistent with a single maximum fabric fabric evolves to steady state near the onset of streaming flow and ice progressively softens downstream almost exclusively due to shear heating the rate of heating is sensitive to local shear strain rates which respond to local changes in bed topography as ice is squeezed through the basal trough the impact of shear heating on the downstream evolution of ice rheology in a laterally confined glacier suggests that the thermoviscous feedback wherein faster ice flow leads to higher rates of shear heating further softening the ice is a fundamental control on glacier dynamics

influence of channelling on heating in ice sheet flows ice sheet flows can be channelled by perturbations in the basal topography or in the sliding coefficient these lead to spatial variation in the steady profile the flux and the dissipative heating this paper examines the linearized theory of heating variations showing that the map plane aspect ratio of the basal perturbation has a dominating effect on the qualitative behaviour for ribbing transverse to the direction of flow maximum heating occurs over bedrock and sliding viscosity highs when flow parallel channelling occurs maximum heating occurs over bedrock lows and sliding viscosity lows these results are used to examine symmetry breaking behaviour of numerical thermoviscous ice sheet models in terms of a dissipation driven creep instability

joint analysis of teleseismic receiver functions and surface wave dispersion using the genetic algorithm teleseismic p wave receiver function data and rayleigh wave phase velocity measurements are combined using the genetic algorithm a global optimi zation technique to model crustal structure in southern korea the two datasets complement each other because receiver functions are sensitive to shear wave ve locity contrasts in layered structures while surface wave dispersion is sensitive to averages of shear wave velocities the genetic algorithm is more useful than line arized inversion in regions where there is little a priori information about local velocity structure because it is not sensitive to the initial model the stability and variability of resulting crustal model parameters are quantified by using a monte carlo technique in specifying a suite of initial models depths to the moho discon tinuity in southern korea were estimated to be 29 30 km for stations near the western coast and 33 36 km for inland stations a well resolved crustal low velocity zone was inferred for some stations

widespread complex flow in the interior of the antarctic ice sheet it has been suggested that as much as 90 of the discharge from the antarctic ice sheet is drained through a small number of fast moving ice streams and outlet glaciers fed by relatively stable and inactive catchment areas here evidence obtained from balance velocity estimates suggests that each major drainage basin is fed by complex systems of tributaries that penetrate up to 1000 kilometers from the grounding line into the interior of the ice sheet this finding has important consequences for the modeled or estimated dynamic response time of past and present ice sheets to climate forcing

a simple holistic hypothesis for the self destruction of ice sheets abstract ice sheets are the only components of earth s climate system that can self destruct this paper presents the quantitative force balance for bottom up modeling of ice sheets as first presented qualitatively in this journal as a way to quantify ice bed uncoupling leading to self destruction of ice sheets hughes 2009a rapid changes in sea level and climate can result if a large ice sheet self destructs quickly as did the former laurentide ice sheet of north america between 8100 and 7900 bp thereby terminating the last cycle of quaternary glaciation ice streams discharge up to 90 percent of ice from past and present ice sheets a hypothesis is presented in which self destruction of an ice sheet begins when ubiquitous ice bed decoupling quantified as a floating fraction of ice proceeds along ice streams this causes ice streams to surge and reduce thickness by some 90 percent and height above sea level by up to 99 percent for floating ice so the ice sheet undergoes gravitational collapse ice collapsing over marine embayments becomes floating ice shelves that may then disintegrate rapidly this floods the world ocean with icebergs that reduce the ocean to atmosphere heat exchange thereby triggering climate change calving bays migrate up low stagnating ice streams and carve out the accumulation zone of the collapsed ice sheet which prevents its recovery decreases earth s albedo and terminates the glaciation cycle this sequence of events may coincide with a proposed life cycle of ice streams that drain the ice sheet a first order treatment of these life cycles is presented that depends on the longitudinal force balance along the flowbands of ice streams and gives a first approximation to ice bed uncoupling at snapshots during gravitational collapse into ice shelves that disintegrate thereby removing the ice sheet the stability of the antarctic ice sheet is assessed using this bottom up approach

on the numerical computation of temperature in an ice sheet quadrature solutions for temperature fields in the central regions of ice sheets where flow is by internal deformation are presented and compared with numerical computations and the european ice sheet modelling initiative eismint benchmark standards the solution appears to be more accurate than the eismint benchmark standards for thermomechanically uncoupled temperature distributions the ability of finite difference and pseudo spectral methods to reproduce this solution is considered errors in the eismint benchmark are larger than expected the possibility that they could arise from inaccurate evaluation of the vertical velocity is considered and found to be unlikely formulae for computing the vertical velocity in jenssen s coordinate are complicated and may lead to programming errors a simple form of the heat transport equation in the coordinate for flow by sliding and internal deformation is derived arid presented and it is shown how this form is particularly suitable for finite element computations it is also shown that only two quadratures are necessary to compute the vertical and horizontal heat transport and the ice flux

an inverted continental moho and serpentinization of the forearc mantle volatiles that are transported by subducting lithospheric plates to depths greater than 100 km are thought to induce partial melting in the overlying mantle wedge resulting in arc magmatism and the addition of significant quantities of material to the overlying lithosphere asthenospheric flow and upwelling within the wedge produce increased lithospheric temperatures in this back arc region but the forearc mantle in the corner of the wedge is thought to be significantly cooler here we explore the structure of the mantle wedge in the southern cascadia subduction zone using scattered teleseismic waves recorded on a dense portable array of broadband seismometers we find very low shear wave velocities in the cold forearc mantle indicated by the exceptional occurrence of an inverted continental moho which reverts to normal polarity seaward of the cascade arc this observation provides compelling evidence for a highly hydrated and serpentinized forearc region consistent with thermal and petrological models of the forearc mantle wedge this serpentinized material is thought to have low strength and may therefore control the down dip rupture limit of great thrust earthquakes as well as the nature of large scale flow in the mantle wedge

compressional and shear wave velocity versus depth relations for common rock types in northern california abstract this article presents new empirical compressional and shear wave velocity vp and vs versus depth relationships for the most common rock types in northern california vp versus depth relations were developed from borehole laboratory seismic refraction and tomography and density measurements and were converted to vs versus depth relations using new empirical relations between vp and vs the relations proposed here account for increasing overburden pressure but not for variations in other factors that can influence velocity over short distance scales such as lithology consolidation induration porosity and stratigraphic age standard deviations of the misfits predicted by these relations thus provide a measure of the importance of the variability in vp and vs caused by these other factors because gabbros greenstones basalts and other mafic rocks have a different vp and vs relationship than sedimentary and granitic rocks the differences in vs between these rock types at depths below 6 or 7 km are generally small the new relations were used to derive the 2005 u s geological survey seismic velocity model for northern california employed in the broadband strong motion simulations of the 1989 loma prieta and 1906 san francisco earthquakes initial tests of the model indicate that the vp model generally compares favorably to regional seismic tomography models but that the vp and vs values proposed for the franciscan complex may be about 5 too high

the eismint benchmarks for testing ice sheet models we present a series of benchmark experiments designed for testing and comparing numerical ice sheet models following the outcome of two eismintworkshops organized to intercompare large scale ice sheet models currently in operation model benchmark experiments are described for ice sheets underfixed and moving margin conditions these address both steady state and time dependent behavior under schematic boundary conditions and with prescribedphysics a comparison was made of each model s prediction of basic geophysical variables such as ice thickness velocity and temperature consensusachieved in the model intercomparison provides reference solutions against which the accuracy and consistency of ice sheet modeling codes can be assessed

exact solutions to the thermomechanically coupled shallow ice approximation effective tools for verification we describe exact solutions to the thermomechanically coupled shallow ice approximation in three spatial dimensions although artificially constructed these solutions are very useful for testing numerical methods in fact they allow us to verify a finite difference scheme that is to show that the results of our numerical scheme converge to the correct continuum values as the grid is refined in three dimensions comparison of numerical results with exact solutions has helped us to precisely quantify and understand some of the numerical errors we are making our verified numerical scheme shows the basal temperature spokes which arose in the eismint european ice sheet modelling initiative ii intercomparison payne and others 2000 a careful analysis describes these warm spokes as numerical errors which occur when the derivative of the strain heating term with respect to the temperature is large on the other hand the appearance of basal temperature spokes in a verified numerical scheme strongly suggests that they are a feature of the eismint ii experiment f continuum problem in fact they are clear evidence of an unstable equilibrium point of the continuum problem this paper is a sequel to bueler and others 2005 which addresses exact solutions and verification in the isothermal case

irregular oscillations of the west antarctic ice sheet model simulations of the west antarctic ice sheet suggest that sporadic perhaps chaotic collapse complete mobilization of the ice sheet occurred throughout the past one million years the irregular behaviour is due to the slow equilibration time of the distribution of basal till which lubricates ice sheet motion this nonlinear response means that predictions of future collapse of the ice sheet in response to global warming must take into account its past history and in particular whether the present basal till distribution predisposes the ice sheet towards rapid change

a 3 ga old polythermal ice sheet in isidis planitia mars dynamics and thermal regime inferred from numerical modeling abstract isidis planitia is a 1350 km wide impact crater located close to the martian equator to test the hypothesis that the 2 8 to 3 4 ga old thumbprint terrain preserved on the floor of this basin is a glacial landform assemblage we perform a numerical simulation of glaciation with a thermo mechanically coupled model of ice sheet dynamics as model inputs we use surface temperatures and ice accumulation patterns predicted by a general circulation model based on the present day atmospheric characteristics and values of the geothermal heat flux provided by a global model of planetary thermal evolution we find that under favorable orbital conditions an ice sheet covering the entire basin can develop in 2 to 5 ma with a maximum thickness of 4 9 km the modeled ice sheet is polythermal it is permanently cold based in the periphery and due to a negative heat flux anomaly also in the center while the pressure melting point is reached in an intermediate ring our simulation is consistent with the interpretation that the thumbprint terrain is a martian equivalent of terrestrial ribbed moraines and has formed below a wet based ice sheet it supports also the interpretation that sinuous ridges and linear valleys observed at the periphery of the basin are parts of a subglacial network of eskers and tunnel valleys that drained the glacial meltwater outwards across the cold based periphery of the ice sheet this work strengthens the hypothesis that glaciers thick as much as several km may have existed on mars several ga ago and that glacial basal melting may have contributed to the production and flow of surface liquid water at that time under an atmosphere no thicker than the present day one