[1] Extension of the continental lithosphere leads to the formation of rift basins and ultimately may create passive continental margins. The mechanisms that operate during the early stage of crustal extension are still intensely debated. We present the results from coincident multichannel seismic and wide-angle seismic profiles that transect across the northern Tyrrhenian Sea Basin. The profil...

Reducing scatter in measurements of regional-phase amplitude ratios is desirable for seismic discrimination applications and also provides insight into crustal structure controls on energy partitioning of regional seismic waves. Our previous analysis (Fan and Lay, 1998) of the regional seismic discriminant, Pg/Lg, indicated that variations in crustal structure cause path-specific fluctuations o...

[1] The Coast Ridge Belt (CRB, Santa Lucia Mts., central California) comprises mid-crustal rocks (750–800 C and 0.8 GPa) of the California magmatic arc. We estimated the bulk composition of the CRB and converted our results to seismic velocities expected at the observed pressures and temperatures. The bulk composition of this arc section changes abruptly at 25 km depth from a granodiorite to a ...

We describe a model of crustal deformation and thermal structure across the Nepal Himalaya over the last 20Myr. The model assumes that, throughout this period, shortening across the range has been entirely taken up by slip along a single thrust fault, the Main Himalayan Thrust (MHT) Fault, and that the growth of the Himalayan wedge has resulted from the development of a duplex at mid-crustal sc...

We developed a kinematic earthquake cycle model applicable to transform fault zones, subduction zones, and collision zones on the basis of elastic dislocation theory. The crustal deformation associated with the periodic occurrence of interplate earthquakes is generally given by the superposition of viscoelastic responses to steady slip on the whole plate boundary, steady back slip on the seismi...

Kosmix lies at the intersection of two important trends: topic exploration and the Deep Web. Topic exploration is a new approach to information discovery on the web that satisfies certain use cases not served well by conventional web search. The Deep Web, an inhospitable region for web crawlers, is emerging as a significant information resource. We describe the anatomy of Kosmix, the first gene...

Plate tectonic reconstructions have been employed in geosciences since 1970s, the context of hydrocarbon exploration, regional geology and paleobiology. Such studies given valuable inputs for climate geodynamic computations, present-day mantle structure, models plate motion, interpretation drift hotspots, true polar wander (TPW), sea level stratigraphic signals. However, generated past by incor...

The formation of the Tibetan plateau during the India-Asia collision remains an outstanding issue. Proposed models mostly focus on the different styles of Tibetan crustal deformation, yet these do not readily explain the observed variation of deformation and deep structures along the collisional zone. Here we use three-dimensional numerical models to evaluate the effects of crustal rheology on ...