[1] The shear tractions that mantle flow exerts on the base of Earth’s lithosphere contribute to plate-driving forces and lithospheric stresses. We investigate the sensitivity of these tractions to sub-lithospheric viscosity variations by comparing shear tractions computed from a mantle flow model featuring laterally-varying lithosphere and asthenosphere viscosity with those from a model with l...

S U M M A R Y The Scandinavian Mountain Chain (the Scandes) exhibits characteristics that are unusual for an old, Palaeozoic mountain belt. These include renewed Neogene uplift in a passive margin setting and the lack of a pronounced crustal root. We investigate the influence of present-day thermal, compositional and geometric structures in the crust and mantle on the topography of the southern...

Article history: Received 12 January 2016 Received in revised form 26 May 2016 Accepted 27 May 2016 Available online 31 May 2016 A fundamental scientific question is, what controls the Earth's topography? Although the theoretical principles of isostasy, flexure, and dynamic topography arewidely discussed, the parameters needed to apply these principles are frequently not available. Isostatic fa...

The continental lithospheric mantle (CLM) is a small-volumed (ca. 2.5% of the total mantle), chemically distinct mantle reservoir that has been suggested to play a role in the source of continental and oceanic magmatism. It is our most easily identifiable reservoir for preserving chemical heterogeneity in the mantle. Petrological and geophysical constraints indicate that the maximum depth of th...

Rapid lithospheric thinning by mantle plumes has not been achieved in numerical experiments performed to date. Efficient thinning depends on small-scale instabilities that convectively remove lithospheric material. These instabilities are favored by hotter plumes or stronger temperature dependence of viscosity, and a simple scaling independent of rheology controls their onset. This scaling allo...

Mantle-derived xenoliths brought to the Earth’s Surface by basalts are important windows to understand composition, evolution and processes of the lithospheric mantle. The lithosphere of the southeastern China is dominated by peridotite or lherzolite [1, 2]. The spinel peridotite xenoliths studied are from Fangshan basalt, eastern China, which are composed of olivine, clinopyroxene, orthopyroxe...

The strength of olivine at low temperatures and high stresses in Earth's lithospheric mantle exerts a critical control on many geodynamic processes, including lithospheric flexure and the formation of plate boundaries. Unfortunately, laboratory-derived values of the strength of olivine at lithospheric conditions are highly variable and significantly disagree with those inferred from geophysical...

Ethiopia is a region where continental rifting gives way to oceanic spreading. Yet the role that pre-existing lithospheric structure, melt, mantle flow, or active upwellings may play in this process is debated. Measurements of seismic anisotropy are often used to attempt to understand the contribution that these mechanisms may play. In this study, we use new data in Afar, Ethiopia along with le...

Isotopic heterogeneity in Hawaiian shield lavas reflects the presence of two distinct recycled components in the Hawaiian plume, both from the same packet of recycled oceanic lithosphere. Radiogenic Os-isotopes and anomalously heavy oxygen-isotopes in Koolau lavas reflect melt generation from recycled oceanic crust plus pelagic sediment. In contrast, Kea lavas have unradiogenic Os-isotopes but ...

[1] Nominally anhydrous minerals (e.g., olivine, clinopyroxene, and orthopyroxene) in peridotite xenoliths collected from the Colorado Plateau and southern Basin and Range in western North America were systematically analyzed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy for water contents. Measured water contents range from 2 to 45 ppm for olivine, from 53 to 402 ppm for orthopyroxene, and from 1...