HR: 16:00h
AN: S22E-01 INVITED     [PDF]
TI: Rheological Stratification of the Continental Lithosphere: Constraints from Space Geodesy
AU: * Thatcher, W
EM: thatcher@usgs.gov
AF: U. S. Geological Survey, MS/977 345 Middlefield Road, Menlo Park, CA 94025 United States
AB: Postseismic transient deformation, isostatic rebound from removal of pluvial lake loads, and lithospheric deflection due to reservoir impoundment are each converging on consistent rheological models for the crust and upper mantle of actively deforming continental regions. These results imply a strong elastic crust 25-40 km thick overlain by a viscoelastic substrate with an effective viscosity of ~10**18 to 10**19 Pa-s. The most surprising result of these studies is that the upper mantle is weaker than the lower crust. However, the lower crust in these regions may deform by ductile flow on longer time scales, and the data provide a lower bound of ~10**20 Pa-s for its effective viscosity. This bound on lower crustal viscosity is consistent with spectral admittance studies of the gravity field and its relation to topography in the western U. S. (Lowry et al., 2000). These results indicate effective elastic lithospheric thickness is 5-15 km in the same regions where the post-loading results indicate the entire crust is strong over about 10 to 10,000 years. Recent (and not so recent) relevant results include: (1) Deformation imaged by InSAR and GPS following the 1992 Landers and 1999 Hector Mine, California earthquakes; (2) Leveling surveys following the 1959 M=7.3 Hegben Lake, Montana earthquake; (3) Isostatic rebound of Lake Bonneville, Utah; (4) Leveling surveys following filling of Lake Mead, Arizona in 1935. Postseismic transient deformation observed following several other recent large earthquakes provides potential constraints on bulk rheology of the lithosphere. However, deformation following events at major plate boundaries, including the 1993 Hokkaido-oki (M=7.8), 1999 Taiwan (M=7.6) and 1999 Izmet (M=7.5) earthquakes is dominated by the effects of buried aseismic afterslip, making it difficult to extract any signals that may be due to bulk relaxation of the lower crust and upper mantle. This suggests that large intraplate earthquakes on faults adjacent to major plate boundaries may be the best sources for probing the rheology of actively deforming continental lithosphere.
DE: 1236 Rheology of the lithosphere and mantle (8160)
DE: 1242 Seismic deformations (7205)
DE: 1243 Space geodetic surveys
DE: 8123 Dynamics, seismotectonics
SC: Seismology [S]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting