Global Analysis of Predicted and Observed Dynamic Topography
Creators: name: Richards, Frederick David
Publisher: name: Apollo - University of Cambridge Repository
Year: 2019
Subjects: dynamic topography
inverse modelling
geodynamics

description: While the bulk of topography on Earth is generated and maintained by variations in the thickness and density of crust and lithosphere, a significant time-variable contribution is expected as a result of convective flow in the underlying mantle. For over three decades, this dynamic topography has been calculated numerically from inferred density structure and radial viscosity profiles. Resulting models predict ±2 km of long wavelength (i.e., ~ 20,000 km) dynamic topography with minor contributions at wavelengths shorter than ~ 5,000 km. Recently, observational studies have revealed that, at the longest wavelengths, dynamic topography variation is ~ 30% that predicted, with ±1 km amplitudes recovered at shorter wavelengths. Here, the existing database of water-loaded basement depths is streamlined, revised and augmented. By fitting increasingly sophisticated thermal models to a combined database of these oceanic basement depths and corrected heat flow measurements, the average thermal structure of oceanic lithosphere is constrained. Significantly, optimal models are consistent with invariable geochemical and seismological constraints whilst yielding similar values of mantle potential temperature and plate thickness, irrespective of whether heat flow, subsidence or both are fit. After recalculating residual depth anomalies relative to optimal age-depth subsidence and combining them with continental constraints from gravity anomalies, a global spherical harmonic representation is generated. Although, long wavelength dynamic topography increases by ~ 40% in the revised observation-based model, spectral analysis confirms that a fundamental discrepancy between observations and predictions remains. Significantly, residual depth anomalies reveal a ~4,000 km-scale eastward tilt across the Indian Peninsula. This asymmetry extends onshore from the high-elevation Western Ghats in the west to the Krishna-Godavari floodplains in the east. Calibrated inverse modelling of drainage networks suggest that the tilt of the peninsula grew principally in Neogene times with vertical motions linked to asthenospheric temperature anomalies. Uplift rates of up to 0.1 mm a$^{-1}$ place important constraints on the spatio-temporal evolution of dynamic topography and suggest that rates of transient vertical motion exceed those predicted by many modelling studies. Most numerical models excise the upper ~ 300 km of Earth's mantle and are unable to reconstruct the wavelength and rate of uplift observed across Peninsular India. By contrast, through conversion of upper mantle shear wave velocities to density using a calibrated anelastic parameterisation, it is shown that shorter wavelength (i.e., ≤ 5,000 km) dynamic topography, can mostly be explained by ±150°C asthenospheric temperature anomalies. Inclusion of anelastically corrected density structure in whole-mantle instantaneous flow models also serves to reduce discrepancy between predictions and observations of dynamic topography at long wavelengths. Residual mismatch between observations and predictions is further improved if the basal 300–600 km of large low shear wave velocity regions in the deep mantle are geochemically distinct and negatively buoyant. Finally, inverse modelling of geoid, dynamic topography, gravity and core-mantle boundary topography observations using adapted density structure suggests that geodynamic constraints can be acceptably fit using plausible radial viscosity profiles, contradicting a long-standing assertion that modest long wavelength dynamic topography is incompatible with geoid observations.
description: Natural Environment Research Council