A broad spectrum of variably altered igneous rocks with a wide range of grain sizes are compressed and heated over a wide range of pressure-temperature paths in subduction zones. Although experimental kinetic data cannot be extrapolated to predict the rates of blueschist and eclogite formation in nature, textural data from rocks indicate that transformation below temperatures of 150øC is minima...

Antineutrinos born in the U and Th decay chains inside the Earth (“Geoneutrinos”) carry out information on the amount and distribution of radiogenic heat sources, which is of fundamental importance for geophysics. Models of the Earth distribute U and Th masses mainly between the continental crust and the lower mantle. It has been much discussed recently that a number of detectors stationed at a...

[1] Two of the most popular mechanisms for thickening the crust beneath the Tibetan Plateau are (1) pure shear with faulting and folding in the upper crust and horizontal shortening below and (2) flow of lower or middle crust without significant shortening of the upper crust. To help discriminate between the relative contributions of these two mechanisms, well-constrained estimates of upper cru...

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 ...

a r t i c l e i n f o A classical problem in seismic tomography is the trade-off between a discontinuity location and the velocity of the medium. For that reason, crustal tomography and Pn tomography are typically done separately by isolating first-arriving Pg and Pn waves. Although this avoids the contamination of secondary arrivals because of the existence of the Moho, lots of good data are d...

The Mw7.8 Kunlun earthquake of 14 November, 2001, in the northern Tibetan Plateau of China, was the largest event in the Chinese continental area in the latest 50 years. In this paper, layered visco-elastic models are calculated using the PSGRN/ PSCMP code, and the results are fi tted to the observed post-seismic deformation. We show that a model of a surface anelastic layer of 10km thickness o...

Northern Japan is a tectonically active area, with the presence of several volcanoes, and with frequent earthquakes among which the destructive Mw  = 8.9-9.0 Tohoku-oki occurred on 11 March 2011. Tectonic activity leaves an imprint on the crustal structures, on both the upper and the lower layers. To investigate the crust in northern Japan, we construct a receiver function data set using telese...

[1] The estimation of uniform viscosities representing the lower crust and uppermost mantle from postseismic or interseismic deformation (i.e., apparent viscosities) is inherently biased with respect to a depth dependence of the viscosities within each layer. Estimates are biased toward a more viscous lower crust or a less viscous lithospheric mantle, depending on the relative geometric mean vi...

S U M M A R Y Dynamic stresses developed in the deep crust as a consequence of flow of weak lower crust may explain anomalously high topography and extensional structures localized along orogenic plateau margins. With lubrication equations commonly used to describe viscous flow in a thin-gap geometry, we model dynamic stresses associated with the obstruction of lower crustal channel flow due to...