Anomalously thin transition zone beneath the Galápagos hotspot

Mantle Transition Zone Topography and Structure Beneath the Yellowstone Hotspot

Mantle transition zone discontinuities beneath the contiguous United States

Using over 310,000 high-quality radial receiver functions recorded by the USArray and other seismic stations in the contiguous United States, the depths of the 410 km and 660 km discontinuities (d410 and d660) are mapped in over 1,000 consecutive overlapping circles with a radius of 1◦. The average mantle transition zone (MTZ) thickness for both the western and central/eastern U.S. is within 3 ...

Variations of P wave speeds in the mantle transition zone beneath the northern Philippine Sea

Using waveforms and travel times from deep earthquakes, weconstructed 16 seismic profiles, each of which constrains theradial variation i Vp over a small area beneath e northern Philippine Sea. Taken together, the azimuthal coverage of these profiles also places tight bounds on the lateral extent of a region of anomalously high Vp (up to 3% faster than average Earth models) originally suggested...

Hydrous upwelling across the mantle transition zone beneath the Afar Triple Junction

The mechanisms that drive the upwelling of chemical heterogeneity from the lower to upper mantle (e.g., thermal versus compositional buoyancy) are key to our understanding of whole mantle convective processes. We address these issues through a receiver function study on new seismic data from recent deployments located on the Afar Triple Junction, a location associated with deep mantle upwelling...

Ecosystem Resilience and Threshold Response in the Galápagos Coastal Zone

BACKGROUND The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provides a conservative estimate on rates of sea-level rise of 3.8 mm yr(-1) at the end of the 21(st) century, which may have a detrimental effect on ecologically important mangrove ecosystems. Understanding factors influencing the long-term resilience of these communities is critical but poorly understood. We investigate ecologica...