Physics
Scientific paper
Jun 1997
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1997pepi..102...33d&link_type=abstract
Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors, v. 102, p. 33-50.
Physics
1
Scientific paper
This paper presents a preliminary analysis of the possibility of using post-glacial rebound observations to place constraints on the anisotropy of upper-mantle viscosity. We extend existing analyses by considering a visco-elastic, spherical, self-gravitating Earth. We show that three independent viscosity parameters are required to describe a Maxwell solid with transversely isotropic viscosity and isotropic elasticity. We develop a theoretical formalism for including the effects of transversely isotropic visco-elasticity in post-glacial rebound models. Using this formalism to describe anisotropy in the upper mantle, we model the free air gravity anomaly, relative sea-level changes, and present-day horizontal motion caused by the rebound, to assess their dependence on the upper-mantle viscosity parameters. We find that as long as those parameters are no larger than the lower-mantle (isotropic) viscosity, the results for the gravity and sea-level changes are notably sensitive to only one of the three viscosity parameters. This suggests, at least for the case where the lower-mantle viscosity is significantly larger than the upper-mantle viscosity, that post-glacial rebound studies of gravity and sea-level will be hard pressed to usefully constrain viscous anisotropy. We do find that the horizontal motion is relatively sensitive to transverse isotropy and so might be used, in principle, to constrain the anisotropy. In practice, though, it is likely that the strong dependence of horizontal motion on details of the ice model, coupled with the uncertainties in existing ice models, would make such attempts impractical.
Dazhong Han
Wahr John
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