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

large scale dynamics of the mesosphere and lower thermosphere an analysis using the extended canadian middle atmosphere model the extended canadian middle atmosphere model is used to investigate the large scale dynamics of the mesosphere and lower thermosphere mlt it is shown that the 4 day wave is substantially amplified in southern polar winter in the presence of instabilities arising from strong vertical shears in the mlt zonal mean zonal winds brought about by parameterized nonorographic gravity wave drag a weaker 4 day wave in northern polar winter is attributed to the weaker wind shears that result from weaker parameterized wave drag the 2 day wave also exhibits a strong dependence on zonal wind shears in agreement with previous modeling studies in the equatorial upper mesosphere the migrating diurnal tide provides most of the resolved westward wave forcing which varies semiannually in conjunction with the tide itself resolved forcing by eastward traveling disturbances is dominated by smaller scales nonmigrating tides and other planetary scale waves play only a minor role in the zonal mean zonal momentum budget in the tropics at these heights resolved waves are shown to play a significant role in the zonal mean meridional momentum budget in the mlt impacting significantly on gradient wind balance balance fails at low latitudes as a result of a strong reynolds stress associated with the migrating diurnal tide an effect which is most pronounced at equinox when the tide is strongest resolved and parameterized waves account for most of the imbalance at higher latitudes in summer this results in the gradient wind underestimating the actual eastward wind reversal by up to 40

evidence for ancient lithospheric deformation in the east european craton based on mantle seismic anisotropy and crustal magnetics abstract we present new shear wave splitting measurements performed at 16 stations on the east european craton and discuss their implications in terms of upper mantle anisotropy for this geophysically poorly known region previous investigations of mantle anisotropy in central europe have shown fast directions aligning smoothly with the craton s margin and various suggestions have been proposed to explain their origin such as asthenospheric flow or lithospheric frozen in deformation here we aim at investigating the continuation of this shear wave splitting pattern further to the east into the east european craton for the craton the interpretation appears to be less ambiguous than for central europe since several arguments support lithospheric anisotropy in this region 1 the large scale coherence within either of the four constituting blocks and the significant variations between the blocks on a small scale 2 the weak correlation with absolute plate motion vectors and 3 the good correlation between anisotropy and crustal features for which we use magnetic field alignments as a proxy rather good correlation of these magnetic features with seismic fast orientations strongly supports the idea of vertically coherent deformation throughout upper mantle and crust the observed splitting orientations thus reflect the last tectonic events of each block frozen in into the lithosphere for hundreds of millions of years

a reconnaissance teleseismic study of the upper mantle and transition zone beneath the archean slave craton in nw canada abstract the objective of this study is to investigate upper mantle structure below the archean slave craton site of the oldest known rocks on earth and numerous diamondiferous kimberlites and thence to gain an understanding of early craton formation and kimberlite genesis to this aim a temporary array consisting of 13 sites equipped with broadband seismometers recorded teleseisms between november 1996 and may 1998 this data set has been augmented with recordings from the yellowknife seismic array our three most robust observations and their interpretation are 1 p wave travel time tomography reveals the oldest part of the craton the central slave basement complex to be underlain by the fastest seismic velocities indicating that this block remains distinct well into mantle depths 2 receiver function analysis requires only the moho as major s wave velocity discontinuity and points to a fairly constant crustal thickness throughout the slave province and 3 sks splitting analysis shows little variation in delay times and fast polarization directions across the array leading us to conclude that the present day plate motion of north america is the primary cause for mantle fabric beneath the entire array furthermore the data let us rule out the possibility that the mackenzie plume had any seismologically detectable effect on the slave lithosphere more speculative results of our investigation namely a possible genetic link between a low seismic velocity anomaly at depth with the overlying lac de gras kimberlite field and a possible archean origin of two shallow low velocity anomalies will require further investigation

pb isotopic composition of late archaean granites and the extent of recycling early archaean crust in the slave province northwest canada initial pb isotopic compositions have been determined for potassium feldspar from ca 2 58 to 2 62 ga plutonic rocks in the southern and central slave province of northwestern canada to evaluate the extent of recycling of ancient crust within the province large differences in initial pb compositions were measured which correlate with geographical areas of the province plutons in the east central part of the province have initial compositions only slightly more radiogenic than estimated mantle values 207pb 204pb 14 8 14 9 and were dominantly deruved from juvenile crustal sources in contrast plutons in the point lake and western contwoyto lake areas of the western slave province have radiogenic compositions 207pb 204pb 15 1 15 2 and indicate significant recycling of pre 3 5 ga crust the pb data support previous interpretations based on nd isotopes for a major isotopic boundary in the central part of the province granites from the southern part of the province near yellowknife have intermediate compositions which indicate 1 the age of the protolith to the granitoids in the yellowknife area is younger than at point lake but older than in the eastern slave or 2 the granitoids in the yellowknife area contain a mixture of an older point lake type component and younger crust the absence of pre 3 2 ga crust in the yellowknife area and lack of evidence for pre 2 8 ga inherited zircons in the yellowknife granitoids favour the former possibility evidence for recycling of ancient crustal sources such as the acasta gneiss is limited to a relatively small area of the west central part of the province suggesting that acasta aged or derived crust is not widespread in the province the marked regionality of isotopic composition may reflect a basement in the western part of the province which is itself a collage of crust of different age being younger ca 3 2 2 9 in the south relative to the point lake region 3 9 3 2 ga

two anisotropic layers in the slave craton abstract four years of recording global earthquakes using a broadband seismometer located at the ekati diamond mine revealed variations with earthquake azimuth in the arrival of sks phases these variations can be modeled assuming two distinct layers of anisotropy in the lithosphere the lower layer probably lies in the mantle and the anisotropy aligns with both north american plate motion and the strike of mantle structures identified by previous conductivity and geochemical analyses at n50 e the upper layer is hypothesized to result from regional structures in the uppermost mantle and the crust these trends are distinct from the mantle trends

two day wave observations of uars microwave limb sounder mesospheric water vapor and temperature 1 a two day wave disturbance is observed in the mesospheric temperature and water vapor on the basis of new version data from the upper atmosphere research satellite microwave limb sounder using two data segments during the austral summers january february of 1992 and 1993 and the asynoptic mapping method a strong wave signal is identified as having zonal wave number 3 and a westward period of about 2 1 days the wave amplitudes are located near the core of the summer easterly jet with strongest wave amplitudes as large as 11 k and 0 35 part per million by volume near the mesopause the temperature and water vapor wave strengths are highly correlated in time but their peaks are almost longitudinally out of phase poleward heat flux associated with upward wave energy propagation in the southern hemisphere points to baroclinic instability as the cause for the wave appearance a growing wave signature in water vapor is observed in regions of strong meridional gradient of water vapor near the mesopause wave breaking is suggested as moist polar air is displaced into the much drier subtropics and wave amplitude decays

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

the tropical stratopause in the ukmo stratospheric analyses evidence for a 2 day wave and inertial circulations summary large scale atmospheric motions near the low latitude stratopause in the uk meteorological office stratospheric analyses during the northern hemisphere winter are investigated focusing in particular on the 2 day wave and inertial eddies the 2 day wave is a westward propagating planetary wave which appears recurrently in the summer subtropical upper stratosphere and mesosphere space time spectral analysis of the assimilated fields of temperature and winds and high resolution transport of water vapour reveal large amplitude breaking planetary waves in the summer subtropics principally a 2 day wave 3 and a wave 1 of a period near 7 days a region of anomalous zonal mean meridional gradient of potential vorticity also exists pointing to a barotropic instability mechanism for the origin of the 2 day wave by contrast the winter subtropics are characterized by mixing on less than planetary scales during the period considered occurring during the easterly phase of the stratospheric semi annual oscillation water vapour is mixed turbulently into gyres and drawn in narrow filaments out of the southern hemisphere the potential vorticity field displays vertically layered zonally asymmetric variations the behaviour of the model assimilated fields is supported by along track water vapour distribution observed by the microwave limb sounder aboard the upper atmosphere research satellite shows evidences for intermittent filamentary mixing in the northern subtropics and a 2 day wave signature in the summer subtropics based on these results a possible mechanism connecting the initiation of the austral 2 day wave events to strong planetary wave activity in the winter is proposed the winter planetary waves provide the background conditions for development of inertial instabilities at low latitudes of the winter hemisphere which in turn create conditions favourable for barotropic instability of the summer subtropical easterly jet

electric lithosphere of the slave craton the archean slave craton in northwestern canada is an ideal natural laboratory for investigating lithosphere formation and evolution and has become an international focus of broad geoscientific investigation following the discovery of economic diamondiferous kimberlite pipes three deep probing magnetotelluric surveys have recently been carried out on the craton using novel acquisition procedures the magnetotelluric responses reveal an unexpected and remarkable anomaly in electrical conductivity collocated with the kimberlite field that is modeled as a spatially confined upper mantle region of low resistivity 30 m at depths of 80 100 km and is interpreted to be due to dissolved hydrogen or carbon in graphite form this geophysically anomalous upper mantle region is also spatially coincident with a geochemically defined ultradepleted harzburgitic layer the tectonic processes that emplaced this structure are possibly related to the lithospheric subduction and trapping of overlying oceanic mantle at 2630 2620 ma

zonal wave numbers of the summertime 2 day planetary wave observed in the mesosphere by eos aura microwave limb sounder 1 recent observations and theoretical work suggest that the 2 day planetary wave in the summertime mesosphere is composed of multiple superposed zonal wave numbers here we use eos aura microwave limb sounder mls temperature data to determine the component zonal wave numbers of the 2 day wave in the mesosphere at latitudes of 70 s to 70 n from 2004 to 2009 we consider the effect of aliasing between different wave numbers and note that significant aliasing can occur and result in spurious signals particularly at high latitudes in winter the seasonal evolution of the different wave numbers is investigated and found to be very different between the northern and southern hemispheres in both hemispheres the wave is dominated by westward traveling waves of zonal wave number 3 and 4 w3 and w4 however in the southern hemisphere the wave is dominated by the w3 component but in the northern hemisphere the w3 component is smaller and the w4 component is often of similar or larger amplitude a small amplitude westward traveling zonal wave number 2 w2 wave is also evident in both hemispheres in the northern hemisphere the w2 amplitudes never exceed 3 k the w3 amplitudes can reach 3 5 k and the w4 can be the largest component reaching amplitudes of 4 k in the southern hemisphere the w2 amplitudes can reach up to 3 5 k the w3 amplitudes can be much larger reaching 12 k and the w4 amplitudes are smaller than in the northern hemisphere in 4 out of 5 years not exceeding 3 k the northern hemisphere w4 can reach large amplitudes in august when the w3 is small which means that the late summer northern hemisphere quasi 2 day wave is usually a w4 oscillation rather than the familiar w3 in contrast in the southern hemisphere the w3 is often larger than the w4 around the summer solstice and there are no episodes observed where the wave becomes dominated by the w4 for an extended period of time a high degree of interannual variability is evident particularly in the southern hemisphere where the w3 peak amplitudes vary from 12 k in january 2006 to 3 k in january 2009 the height latitude structure of the w4 suggests that this wave is a 4 0 rossby gravity wave

seismic anisotropy of the slave craton nw canada from joint interpretation of sks and rayleigh waves summary teleseismic events recorded at a 25 element array in nw canada between 2001 and 2006 provided sufficient distribution in back azimuth to demonstrate birefringence in sks and skks waves as well as directional dependence of rayleigh wave phase velocities typical delays between orthogonally polarized sks waves are 0 8 1 2 s and modelling of azimuthal dependence indicates two nearly horizontal layers of anisotropy within the mantle anisotropy of rayleigh waves is generally consistent with models of layered vs anisotropies that increase with depth from 1 per cent at the moho to 9 per cent at 200 km but vary between subarrays consistency between the sks and rayleigh wave anisotropies in one subarray suggests that the assumption of symmetry about a horizontal axis is valid there but is not fully valid in other parts of the craton the upper layer of anisotropy occupies approximately the uppermost 120 km in which the fast polarization direction strikes generally north south coinciding with regional scale fold axes mapped at the surface the fast polarization direction of the deeper layer aligns with current north america plate motion but its correlation with trends of coeval kimberlite eruptions within the lac de gras field suggests it can be at least partly attributed to structural preferred orientation of vertical dykes inferred to exist to depths of 200 km

lithospheric geometry of the wopmay orogen from a slave craton to bear province magnetotelluric transect 1 two dimensional inversions of lithospheric probing magnetotelluric mt data at a total of 20 sites acquired along an approximately east west 300 km long profile across the wopmay orogen in the northwest territories canada provide electrical resistivity models of the boundary between the archean slave craton and the adjacent proterozoic bear province an analysis of distortion effects and structural dimensionality indicates that the mt responses are primarily one dimensional or only weakly two dimensional with a depth independent geoelectric strike angle of n32 e consistent with regional structural geology the regional scale model generated from the longer period responses from all of the sites along the profile reveals significant lateral variations in the lithospheric mantle resistive cratonic roots are imaged to depths of 200 km beneath both the slave craton and the hottah terrane of the bear province these are separated by a less resistive region beneath the great bear magmatic zone which is speculatively interpreted as a consequence of a decrease in the grain size of olivine in the wopmay mantle caused by localized shearing compared to its neighboring cratonic roots focused two dimensional models from higher frequency responses at sites on specific sections of the profile reveal the resistivity structure at crustal depths beneath the region these suggest that the root of the slave craton crosses beneath the wopmay orogen and that the wopmay fault zone does not penetrate into the lower crust a comparison of these results with those obtained during the lithoprobe project farther south shows striking along strike variations in the conductivity structure associated with the wopmay orogen

testing five of the simplest upper mantle anisotropic velocity parameterizations using teleseismic s and sks data from the billings montana passcal array 1 five of the simplest parameterizations of upper mantle anisotropy are tested and ranked for a data set collected on a dense temporary passcal seismic array located 100 km ne of yellowstone these hexagonal symmetry anisotropy models possess either one or two layers with either flat or dipping fast velocity axis fva recordings from fifteen high quality direct s and sks arrivals are stacked to provide accurate waveform and error estimates source normalization is accomplished using the cross convolution technique a direct monte carlo neighborhood algorithm is used to map the posteriori model probability density ppd volume using the f test we find that models with purely flat fva can be rejected at 97 probability our best model p5 is a two layer dipping fva parameterization albeit the two layer model with one flat and one dipping fva can only be rejected at 80 probability the best model has a lower layer with a n65 e fva strike and a 12 dip down to the southwest and an upper layer with a n20 w fva strike and a 47 fva dip down to the southeast the bottom asthenospheric layer fva strikes parallel to north america s absolute plate motion direction and dips opposite to what passive plate shear of the asthenosphere would predict the upper lithospheric layer is consistent with lpo accretion associated with north directed drift of the north american plate during the mesozoic comparison between the sks and direct s wave data sets shows that the direct s waves improve resolution of the double layer anisotropic model parameters

how are vertical shear wave splitting measurements affected by variations in the orientation of azimuthal anisotropy with depth splitting measurements of teleseismic shear waves such as sks have been used to estimate the amount and direction of upper mantle anisotropy worldwide these measurements are usually made by approximating the anisotropic regions as a single homogeneous layer and searching for an apparent fast direction and an apparent splitting time t by minimizing the energy on the transverse component of the back projected seismogram in this paper we examine the validity of this assumption in particular we use synthetic seismograms to explore how a vertically varying anisotropic medium affects shear wave splitting measurements we find that weak heterogeneity causes observable effects such as frequency dependence of the apparent splitting parameters these variations can be used in principle to map out the vertical variations in anisotropy with depth through the use of frechet kernels which we derive using perturbation theory in addition we find that measurements made in typical frequency bands produce an apparent orientation direction that is consistently different from the average of the medium and weighted towards the orientation of the anisotropy in the upper portions of the model this tendency of the measurements to mimic the anisotropy at the top part of the medium may explain why shear wave splitting measurements tend to be correlated with surface geology when the heterogeneity becomes stronger multiple scattering reduces the amplitude of the tangential component seismogram and the associated splitting time so that a null result may be obtained despite the fact that the waves have travelled through a strongly anisotropic medium regardless of the amount of vertical heterogeneity we find that there is very little dependence on backazimuth for the measured fast axis direction or splitting time if the top and bottom halves of the medium average to similar fast axis directions if however the average fast axis direction in the top half of the model differs from that in the bottom half splitting time measurements will show a significant dependence on backazimuth but fast axis direction measurements will remain relatively constant

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

on the composite response of the mlt to major sudden stratospheric warming events with elevated stratopause based on a climate chemistry model constrained by reanalyses below 50 km the zonal mean composite response of the mesosphere and lower thermosphere mlt to major sudden stratospheric warming events with elevated stratopauses demonstrates the role of planetary waves pws in driving the mean circulation in the presence of gravity waves gws helping the polar vortex recover and communicating the sudden stratospheric warming ssw impact across the equator with the ssw onset strong westward pw drag appears above 80 km primarily from the dissipation of wave number 1 perturbations with westward period of 5 12 days generated from below by the unstable westward polar stratospheric jet that develops as a result of the ssw the filtering effect of this jet also allows eastward propagating gws to saturate in the winter mlt providing eastward drag that promotes winter polar mesospheric cooling the dominant pw forcing translates to a net westward drag above the eastward mesospheric jet which initiates downwelling over the winter pole as the eastward polar stratospheric jet returns this westward pw drag persists above 80 km and acts synergistically with the return of westward gw drag to drive a stronger polar downwelling that warms the pole adiabatically and helps reform the stratopause at an elevated altitude with the polar wind reversal during the ssw onset the westward drag by the quasi stationary pw in the winter stratosphere drives an anomalous equatorial upwelling and cooling that enhance tropical stratospheric ozone along with equatorial wind anomalies this ozone enhancement subsequently amplifies the migrating semidiurnal tide amplitude in the winter midlatitudes

large scale waves in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere observed by saber observations made by the sounding of the atmosphere using broadband emission radiometry saber instrument on board nasa s thermosphere ionosphere mesosphere energetics and dynamics timed satellite have been processed using salby s fast fourier synoptic mapping ffsm algorithm the mapped data provide a first synoptic look at the mean structure and traveling waves of the mesosphere and lower thermosphere mlt since the launch of the timed satellite in december 2001 the results show the presence of various wave modes in the mlt which reach largest amplitude above the mesopause and include kelvin and rossby gravity waves eastward propagating diurnal oscillations non sunsynchronous tides and a set of quasi normal modes associated with the so called 2 day wave the latter exhibits marked seasonal variability attaining large amplitudes during the solstices and all but disappearing at the equinoxes saber data also show a strong quasi stationary rossby wave signal throughout the middle atmosphere of the winter hemisphere the signal extends into the tropics and even into the summer hemisphere in the mlt suggesting ducting by westerly background zonal winds at certain times of the year the 5 day rossby normal mode and the 4 day wave associated with instability of the polar night jet are also prominent in saber data

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observations of the quasi 2 day wave from the high resolution doppler imager on uars a strong westward traveling oscillation with a period of 2 days and zonal wave number 3 is observed in the mesospheric and lower thermospheric winds from the high resolution doppler imager on the upper atmosphere research satellite the important events happen in january july and september october of which the occurrence in january is the strongest with an amplitude over 60ms 1 detailed analyses for the periods of january 1992 and january 1993 reveal a cause and effect relationship in the wave developing process at 95km the global structures of the wave amplitude and phase are also presented

observations of the 2 day wave in nmc stratospheric analyses abstract observational characteristics of the 2 day wave a westward propagating zonal wave 3 oscillation in the summer subtropical upper stratosphere and mesosphere are studied based on five years of national meteorological center nmc operational stratospheric analyses these data show episodic occurrence of the 2 day wave in the upper stratosphere in january centered near 20 s and july august centered near 20 n these episodes are strongly correlated with observed reversals of the zonal mean potential vorticity gradient near the core of the summer easterly jet consistent with previous suggestions that the 2 day wave is generated by an in situ instability of this jet on the other hand the horizontal and vertical structure of the waves is very similar to that calculated by salby for a global normal mode rossby wave the combination of normal mode structure and instability signature suggests that the 2 day wave is a near resonant mode forced by dynamical instability

the central slave basement complex part i its structural topology and autochthonous cover new field and geochronological data are used to define the distribution of mesoarchean basement rocks in the south central slave province this distribution reflects a single contiguous basement terrane that we propose to call the central slave basement complex it shows a structural topology that is internally consistent and compatible with known regional folding and faulting events a sample of a proposed basement gneiss below the courageous lake greenstone belt central slave province has been dated by u pb methods and yields an age of 3325 8 ma consistent with the new basement distribution this sample also contains 2723 3 ma metamorphic zircon and ca 2680 ma titanite the central slave basement complex is overlain by a thin discontinuous but distinctive cover sequence that includes minor volcanic rocks clastic sedimentary rocks and banded iron formation all previously known and some new occurrences of this distinctive cover sequence occur in the immediate stratigraphic hanging wall of the

comparing crustal and mantle fabric from the north american craton using magnetics and seismic anisotropy a central target in earth sciences is the study of deformation at various depth levels within the earth seismology has offered a remarkable tool for doing this via seismic anisotropy it is however not always clear how to interpret those observations a question of interest is to understand the relation between the deformation of the mantle and the crust and in studying the relation between the two mantle deformation is expressed in seismic anisotropy in this paper we seek an objective way of extracting information about crustal fabric as well to be able to compare with seismic anisotropy the magnetization of crustal rocks offers an attractive possibility for doing this we thus explore the use of magnetic data and we compare magnetic crustal fabric orientation with mantle fabric observations from seismic anisotropy we apply our technique to the north american craton for which we have an excellent magnetic dataset and we show that there is a clear relation between crustal and mantle fabric for the cratonic region this has important implications for crustal formation and for interpreting seismic anisotropy observations

kimberlite trends in nw canada kimberlite deposits attract much interest as the host rock for diamonds but their eruption mechanisms and deep root structure remain poorly perceived independent geochronological and seismic shear wave anisotropy studies in nw canada near the world9s newest diamond mines revealed an unexpected correlation in structural trends age of eruption grouped 36 kimberlites into linear clusters forward modelling of shear wave delays indicated two distinct layers of seismic anisotropy with a boundary about 120 km deep the similarity of inferred age and trend direction at surface and at depth indicates that these kimberlites erupted along lithospheric scale fractures oriented by continental stress fields related to north american plate motions

seismic anisotropy beneath stable continental interiors a robust knowledge of seismic anisotropy beneath the continents is essential to our understanding of plate tectonic theory as anisotropy provides a unique constraint on the character of past and present deformation in the lithosphere and sublithospheric mantle this review paper summarizes the range of techniques currently available to image seismic anisotropy with passive source seismic data and addresses current issues surrounding the observation and interpretation of continental seismic anisotropy to this end we present case studies for four regions where seismic anisotropy has been extensively investigated in recent years eastern north america the canadian shield australia and southern africa based on this full suite of results we infer that stable continental regions generally contain seismic anisotropy that is clearly located within both the lithosphere and the sublithospheric mantle usually to depths of at least 200 km and perhaps more an implication of these results is that tectonic plates are at most only partially coupled to the underlying mantle the results from these case studies also demonstrate that while remarkable progress in seismic anisotropy imaging has been achieved in recent years it is clear that much more work will be required to adequately understand the origin of continental seismic anisotropy we suggest that a more robust characterization of anisotropic parameters can only be achieved by integrating complementary seismic datasets and by incorporating constraints from key related datasets from mineral physics magnetotellurics gravity and geodesy

the petroleum geochemistry of the termit basin eastern niger abstract sixty crude oils from the termit basin eastern niger were analysed using biomarker distributions and bulk stable carbon isotopic compositions comprehensive oil to oil correlation indicates that there are two distinct families in the termit basin the majority of the oils are geochemically similar and characterized by low pr ph pristane to phytane ratios and high gammacerane c 30 hopane ratios small amounts of c 24 tetracyclic terpanes but abundant c 23 tricyclic terpane and lower 13 c values for saturated and aromatic hydrocarbon fractions all of these geochemical characteristics indicate possible marine sources with saline and reducing depositional environments in contrast oils from well dd 1 have different geochemical features they are characterized by relatively higher pr ph and lower gammacerane c 30 hopane ratios higher amounts of c 24 tetracyclic terpane but a low content of c 23 tricyclic terpane and relatively higher 13 c values for saturated and aromatic hydrocarbon fractions these geochemical signatures indicate possible lacustrine sources deposited under freshwater suboxic oxic conditions this oil family also has a unique biomarker signature in that there are large amounts of c 30 4 methylsteranes indicating a freshwater lacustrine depositional environment the maturity of the termit oils is assessed using a number of maturity indicators based on biomarkers alkyl naphthalenes alkyl phenanthrenes and alkyl dibenzothiophenes all parameters indicate that all of the oils are generated by source rocks within the main phase of the oil generation stage with equivalent vitrinite reflectance of 0 58 0 87

new insights into the lithosphere beneath the superior province from rayleigh wave dispersion and receiver function analysis we study the azimuthally anisotropic upper mantle structure of the superior craton and grenville province in ontario canada using rayleigh wave phase velocity data in the period range 40 160 s 152 two station dispersion measurements are combined in a tomographic inversion that solves simultaneously for isotropic and anisotropic terms using a least squares technique we perform a series of tests to derive optimal regularization smoothing and damping and to assess the resolution of and trade offs between isotropic and anisotropic anomalies the tomographic inversion is able to resolve isotropic phase velocity anomalies on a scale of 200 300 km and to distinguish between different anisotropic regimes on a 500 km scale across the study region isotropic phase velocity anomalies in the tomographic model span a range of up to 2 per cent around a regional average which is similar to the canadian shield dispersion curve of brune dorman 1963 with phase velocities up to 3 per cent above global reference models the amplitude of azimuthal phase velocity anisotropy reaches a maximum of 1 2 per cent a clear east west division of the study area based on both isotropic phase velocity anomalies and azimuthal anisotropy is apparent in the western superior isotropic phase velocities are generally higher than the regional average anisotropy is observed at all periods with ene wsw to ne sw fast propagation directions at periods 120 s the anisotropy likely results from frozen lithospheric fabric aligned with tectonic boundaries whereas the anisotropy at longer periods is interpreted to arise from present day sublithospheric flow the fast directions from published sks measurements are close to the fast rayleigh wave propagation directions throughout the period range sampled and the large sks splitting times may be accounted for by this near coincidence of fast propagation directions across most of eastern ontario phase velocities are lower than the regional average fast propagation directions rotate from nw se at 40 130 s period to wnw ese at periods 140 160 s the results suggest a difference in fast propagation directions between the anisotropic fabric frozen into the lithosphere and the fabric due to current and recent sublithospheric flow the superior craton and grenville province are characterized by large scale structural variations that reflect the complex tectonic history of the region this study highlights differences between the characteristics of eastern and western ontario and indicates the occurrence of multiple layers of anisotropy in the subcratonic upper mantle

the electrical structure of the slave craton the slave craton in northwestern canada a relatively small archean craton 600400 km is ideal as a natural laboratory for investigating the formation and evolution of mesoarchean and neoarchean sub continental lithospheric mantle sclm excellent outcrop and the discovery of economic diamondiferous kimberlite pipes in the centre of the craton during the early 1990s have led to an unparalleled amount of geoscientific information becoming available over the last 5 years deep probing electromagnetic surveys were conducted on the slave using the natural source magnetotelluric mt technique as part of a variety of programs to study the craton and determine its regional scale electrical structure two of the four types of surveys involved novel mt data acquisition one through frozen lakes along ice roads during winter and the second using ocean bottom mt instrumentation deployed from float planes the primary initial objective of the mt surveys was to determine the geometry of the topography of the lithosphere asthenosphere boundary lab across the slave craton however the mt responses revealed completely serendipitously a remarkable anomaly in electrical conductivity in the sclm of the central slave craton this central slave mantle conductor csmc anomaly is modelled as a localized region of low resistivity 10 15 v m beginning at depths of f80 120 km and striking ne sw where precisely located it is spatially coincident with the eocene aged kimberlite field in the central part of the craton the so called corridor of hope and also with a geochemically defined ultra depleted harzburgitic layer interpreted as oceanic or arc related lithosphere emplaced during early tectonism the csmc lies wholly within the ne sw

upper mantle stratigraphy beneath the southern slave craton a large teleseismic data set comprising 724 broadband three component p wave seismograms has been compiled for the southern slave craton with the objective of characterizing underlying mantle stratigraphy coherent p to s wave conversions are identified by simultaneously deconvolving seismograms as functions of epicentral distance and along theoretical moveout curves corresponding to possible mantle phases clear pds conversions are observed from the 410 and 660 km discontinuities at times that are only slightly faster than those predicted from the iasp91 model and over 1 0 s slower than corresponding times observed at other stations on the canadian shield and the south african kaapvaal craton the pds times show very little azimuthal variation implying an absence of major lateral velocity variations in the lithospheric mantle underlying the slave craton and adjacent wopmay orogen and taltson magmatic zone considered in light of other geophysical and geological evidence these results suggest that th

global distribution and variability of quasi 2 day waves based on the nogaps alpha reanalysis model this study presents the analysis of 14 months january 2009 february 2010 of continuous hourly nogaps alpha reanalysis data used for examining the quasi 2 day wave otdw the global structure and seasonal variability of the eastward and westward traveling qtdws in all meteorological fields geopotential height zonal and meridional wind and temperature have been studied the use of hourly reanalysis data allows a comprehensive understanding of the global spatial temporal qtdw distribution by simultaneous separations of all tides and planetary waves the wave characteristics amplitudes and phases are presented in latitude range 80 and altitudes from 15 to 95 km two different types of eastward traveling waves are identified i waves at middle and high latitudes with zonal wave numbers 2 and 3 which are observed in the local winters and ii waves observed predominantly over the equator with zonal wave number 2 which do not have a well defined seasonal variability but show some enhancement between june and august while the first type waves are seen in all meteorological fields the second ones are not seen in the meridional wind and belong to the ultra fast kelvin waves two different types of westward traveling waves have been identified as well i waves at middle and high latitudes with zonal wave numbers 2 3 and 4 which are observed mainly in summer hemisphere and ii waves observed predominantly over the equator with zonal wave numbers 1 2 and 3 enhanced predominantly at both solstices but are seen in other seasons as well while the first type waves are seen in all meteorological fields the second ones are observed in the meridional wind and are rossby gravity normal modes

two anisotropic layers in central orogenic belt of north china craton abstract we present evidence of two layers of anisotropy in earth s upper mantle beneath the central orogenic belt of the north china craton from teleseismic shear wave splitting analysis a one layer model is in disagreement with the well constrained azimuth dependent splitting parameters for stations in the central orogenic belt however two layers of anisotropy improve the fit to the data at the bottom layer the fast polarization directions are subparallel to the absolute plate motion indicating the presence of the current strain within the subcratonic asthenosphere related to the interactions between the surrounding plates in contrast at the top layer the fast polarization directions are consistent with the strikes of the local surface faults confirming a combined contribution of the past orogenies in the lithosphere

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

two day wave structure and mean flow interactions observed by radar and high resolution doppler imager data obtained with four mf and meteor radars at equatorial and subtropical sites and with the high resolution doppler imager hrdi instrument aboard the uars satellite were used to examine the structure wave mean flow interactions and potential sources of the 2 day wave in the middle atmosphere during three southern hemisphere summers the three wave events were highly transient having typical durations of 20 to 30 days and exhibiting modulation at shorter periods temporal variations were found to exhibit good correlations between radar and hrdi data radar and hrdi data were used to estimate those components of the eliassen palm flux that could be assessed with these data meridional fluxes of momentum and heat were computed using hrdi data and agree reasonably with the momentum fluxes computed from radar data at discrete locations these fluxes were found to exhibit consistent latitudinal structures each year suggesting systematic wave excitation and wave mean flow interactions meridional momentum flux gradients were seen to be anticorrelated with zonal wind accelerations in a manner consistent with wave forcing of the large scale circulation the apparent wave mean flow interactions suggest that the 2 day wave could be a transient response to baroclinic instability of the summer hemisphere mesospheric jet a calculation of the meridional gradient of quasi geostrophic potential vorticity using hrdi winds and the cospar international reference atmosphere cira 1986 temperatures exhibits a region of instability in the lower and middle mesosphere extending into subtropical latitudes and provides additional evidence of a possible source of this motion via baroclinic instability of the summer hemisphere jet structure

numerical simulations of depth dependent anisotropy and frequency dependent wave propagation effects a numerical investigation of the effects of shear wave splitting for vertical propagation in a smoothly varying anisotropic medium is presented through forward modeling we predict the olivine lattice preferred orientation lpo developed in the oceanic upper mantle in response to the absolute plate motion apm we consider the effect of a change in apm similar to the one that presumably caused the kink in the emperor hawaii seamount island chain in the north pacific this results in an oblique orientation between lithospheric and asthenospheric anisotropy numerical simulations of shear wave propagation are used to estimate the characteristics of shear wave splitting ray theory does not account for coupling between shear waves in the depth dependent anisotropic medium due to the implicit assumption of high frequency a forward propagator technique for calculating waveforms and splitting parameters is used to assess frequency dependent effects the results show that ray theory is valid for estimating the splitting only for frequencies above 1 hz at frequencies more realistic for sks propagation apparent splitting parameters exhibit a 2 dependence on the incoming shear wave polarization back azimuth for certain back azimuth ranges shear wave splitting is very frequency dependent with apparent delay times ranging from 1 to 4 s and apparent fast polarization directions changing rapidly by up to 80 thus stacking of shear wave splitting measurements for largely different initial polarizations and frequencies should be avoided depth dependent anisotropy implies that shear wave splitting analyses will be sensitive to filtering anisotropic depth variations cannot be resolved unambiguously from splitting observations at relatively long periods 5 s it is not possible for instance to discriminate between smooth and abrupt transitions separating the anisotropic regions shorter period waveforms provide further information on the fine structure of anisotropic depth variations a comparison between splitting calculations and observations from hawaii suggests a divergent past apm direction or may indicate an alternative mechanism responsible for the lithospheric anisotropy

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

stacked uppermost mantle layers within the slave craton of nw canada as defined by anisotropic seismic discontinuities 1 a 20 station seismic array in nw canada recorded 336 teleseismic events with distribution in back azimuth and epicentral distance sufficient to characterize uppermost mantle discontinuities between depths typical of the mohorovicic and lehman discontinuities following wavefield decomposition groups of seismograms were source normalized through simultaneous deconvolution to estimate the near receiver impulse response and thus detect major discontinuities beneath each seismic station stations within the lac de gras kimberlite field display an unusually strong negative impulse on the radial component within the nw quadrant and two moderate impulses on the transverse component forward modeling of these impulses suggests a mantle layer dipping at 22 to the southeast with a mildly anisotropic 2 upper discontinuity at 120 135 km depth and another mildly anisotropic 2 discontinuity at about 170 km depth superimposed on these layers is another stronger anisotropic 4 layer between 110 and 180 km depths that dips to the west stations outside of the lac de gras field but within the southeastern slave craton display more numerous but weaker impulses the most prominent of these occurs at about 150 km depth on the transverse component and has opposite polarity to that observed farther north the prominent negative impulse observed on the radial component is interpreted to arise from structural preferred orientation in the form of a stockwork of wehrlite dykes beneath the lac de gras field interpretation of the other layers in the context of known surface geology as well as xenolith petrology and garnet geochemistry of diamondiferous kimberlites favors previous suggestions that they represent 4000 2900 ma depleted harzburgite and eclogite layers underthrust from the northwest at 2600 or 1880 ma the layer beneath the se slave craton has a similar but distinct tectonic history of nw verging underthrusting associated with the 2635 2615 ma defeat suite of plutonism taken together these interpretations indicate that the slave craton was assembled from at least four lithospheric blocks prior to its cratonization about 2580 ma each block is 90 120 km thick and all four blocks abut across a steep suture boundary beneath mackay lake in the central slave craton significant amounts of carbon and eclogites could have become incorporated into the central slave mantle within the diamond stability field during the proposed underthrusting of lithosphere to explain their relatively common occurrence in kimberlite eruptions within the slave craton

global distribution and interannual variations of mesospheric and lower thermospheric neutral wind diurnal tide 1 migrating tide 1 using the timed doppler interferometer tidi mesospheric and lower thermospheric neutral wind multiyear data set 2002 2007 and ncar time general circulation models gcm 1 2 annual run results 2002 2005 at the tidi sampling points we study the migrating diurnal tide s global distribution interannual and seasonal variations in connection with the mean zonal wind interannual variations a strong quasi biennial oscillation qbo effect on the diurnal tide was observed in the tidi data and reproduced to a lesser degree in the time gcm run the migrating diurnal tide amplitude is larger during the eastward phase of the stratospheric qbo and weaker during the westward phase westward mesospheric equatorial mean zonal winds appeared during the eastward phase of the stratospheric qbo in 2002 2004 and 2006 the strongest qbo effect on both the migrating diurnal tide and mean zonal winds was observed during the march equinox the stronger tides may be related to the weaker gravity wave filtering in the stratosphere during the eastward phase stratospheric qbo the tidi data also exhibit large interhemispheric asymmetry the westward mean zonal winds in the mesosphere appeared to be associated with the enhanced diurnal tide the time gcm 1 2 diurnal tide amplitudes are in general smaller than those observed by the tidi instrument limited vertical spatial resolution for the time cgm 1 2 is suggested as the cause future improvements are expected with a higher spatial resolution in the model

the two day wave in eos mls temperature and wind measurements during 2004 2005 winter 1 two day wave observations during january march 2005 are reported using the recently launched microwave limb sounder mls aboard nasa s earth observing system aura mission wave induced disturbances in temperature water vapor carbon monoxide and mls line of sight wind appear in early january peak near the end of january and persist until late february temperature and wind amplitudes as large as 9 k and 50 m s are observed near 90 km the wave disturbance is initially confined in the mid to low summer latitudes where the climatological summer easterly jet exhibits strong shear the wave then develops features akin to the third rossby gravity global normal mode with a weak temperature disturbance in the winter hemisphere anti symmetric about the equator and wind disturbance over the equator strong wind perturbation episode around 17 23 january 2005 in the mid latitude southern hemisphere coincides with a particularly intense solar proton event