INTRODUCTION NUMERICAL EXPERIMENTS RESULTS DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION A Geodynamic Modeling Investigation of Plume-Lithosphere Interactions Beneath the East African Rift Tahiry Rajaonarison, Sarah Stamps, John Naliboﬀ, Andrew Nyblade Virginia Tech (dstamps@vt.edu), New Mexico Tech, Penn State University 1 1 3 1 2 REFERENCES Alejano, L. R., and A. Bobet. Drucker–prager criterion (2012), in The ISRM Suggested Methods for Rock Characterization, Testing and Monitoring: 2007-2014, pp. 247–252, Springer . Amante, C., & Eakins, B. W. ETOPO1 arc-minute global relief model: procedures, data sources and analysis (2009). Arndt D. , W. Bangerth, T. C. Clevenger, D. Davydov, M. Fehling, D. Garcia-Sanchez, G. Harper, T. Heister, L. Heltai, M. Kronbichler, R. M. Kynch, M. Maier, J.-P. Pelteret, B. Turcksin, D. Wells (2019), The deal.II Library, Version 9.1, Journal of Numerical Mathematics, Volume 27, Issue 4, Pages 203-213. Bagley, B., and A. A. Nyblade (2013), Seismic anisotropy in eastern africa, mantle ﬂow, and the african superplume, Geophysical Research Letters , 40 (8), 1500–1505, doi:10.1002/grl.50315. Bangerth, W., T. Heister, et al. (2015), ASPECT: Advanced solver for problems in Earth’s convection, Computational Infrastructure for Geodynamics. Bangerth, W., J. Dannberg, R. Gassmoeller, T. Heister, et al. ASPECT v2.2.0 [software] (2019). Bassin, Chantal (200), "The current limits of resolution for surface wave tomography in North America." EOS Trans. AGU. 81: Fall Meet. Suppl., Abstract. Chapman, D. (1986) Thermal gradients in the continental crust, Geological Society, London, Special Publications , 24 (1), 63–70. cal Research: Solid Earth, 86(B4), 2825-2852. Kronbichler, M., T. Heister, and W. Bangerth (2012), High accuracy mantle convection simulation through modern numerical methods, Geophysical Journal International, 191(1), 12–29, doi: 10.1111/j.1365-246X.2012.05609.x. 2 3 GOVERNING EQUATIONS MODEL ASSUMPTIONS AND CHARACTERISTIC WORK IN PROGRESS TESTING THE ROLE OF MULTIPLE PLUMES OR SUPERPLUME Coblentz, D. D., and M. Sandiford (1994), Tectonic stresses in the african plate: Constraints on the ambient lithospheric stress state, Geology , 22 (9), 831–834Dziewonski, A. M., Chou, T. A., & Woodhouse, J. H. (1981), Determination of earthquake source parameters from waveform data for studies of global and regional seismicity. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 86(B4), 2825-2852. Edwards, M. O. 1989, "Global gridded elevation and bathymetry (ETOPO5)." Digital raster data on a 5. Ekström, G., M. Nettles, and A. Dziewonski (2012), The global cmt project 2004–2010: Centroid-moment tensors for 13,017 earthquakes, Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors , 200, 1–9. Emry, E. L., Shen, Y., Nyblade, A. A., Flinders, A., & Bao, X. (2019), Upper mantle earth structure in Africa from full‐wave ambient noise tomography. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, 20(1), 120-147, doi:10.1029/2018GC007Glerum, A., Brune, S., Stamps, D. S., & Strecker, M. R. (2020), Victoria continental microplate dynamics controlled by the lithospheric strength distribution of the East African Rift. Nature Communications, 11(1), 1-15. Kronbichler, M., T. Heister, and W. Bangerth (2012), High accuracy mantle convection simulation through modern numerical methods, Geophysical Journal International, 191(1), 12–29, doi: 10.1111/j.1365-246X.2012.05609.x. Pasyanos, M. E. (2013), A lithospheric attenuation model of North America. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 103(6), 3321-3333, doi:10.1785/0120130122. Saria, E., E. Calais, D. Stamps, D. Delvaux, and C. Hartnady. Present-day kinematics of the east african rift, Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 119(4), 3584–3600 (2014). Stamps, D. S., Saria, E., & Kreemer, C. A geodetic strain rate model for the East African Rift System. Scientiﬁc Reports, 8(1), 1-8 (2018). Stamps, D., L. Flesch, E. Calais, and A. Ghosh. Current kinematics and dynamics of africa and the east african rift system, Jou