New Insights into the Seismic Structure of the North American Upper Mantle

I present new seismic images of the key structural elements of the upper mantle beneath North America. These images are significantly different from all previous studies. Unlike earlier work, we successfully image the cratonic lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary (LAB), and the 250-km-deep Lehmann discontinuity. We see evidence for plate tectonics in the mid-Proterozoic, and we identify a pronounced, if enigmatic, low velocity layer (LVL) above the mantle transition zone (410-discontinuity). These results have important implications for the evolution of the lithosphere and upper mantle.

Speaker: Walter Mooney, USGS