Small-scale instabilities below the cooling oceanic lithosphere

Details Small-scale instabilities below the cooling oceanic lithosphere Small-scale instabilities below the cooling oceanic lithosphere

Sep 1999

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1999geoji.138..655m&link_type=abstract

Geophysical Journal International, Volume 138, Issue 3, pp. 655-666.

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

10

Lithospheric Cooling, Mid-Ocean Ridges, Rayleigh, Aylor Instabilities, Se Pacific, Upper Mantle, Viscosity

Scientific paper

Interpretation of satellite altimetry data as well as ship bathymetry data revealed strongly elongated anomalies roughly perpendicular to the mid-ocean ridges in the Indian and east Pacific oceans. A spectral analysis of gravity altimetry data along profiles parallel to the East Pacific Rise indicated wavelengths of about 150-180 km close to the ridge and about 250 km further away. A simple model of Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities developing at the base of the cooling lithosphere is discussed and applied to the data. By considering thermal diffusion and comparing Rayleigh-Taylor growth rates to the velocity of the thermal front in the cooling lithosphere, we are able to explain the observed anomalies by instabilities developing below the lithosphere in a layer with a viscosity of about 10^19 Pa s above an asthenospheric layer with a viscosity reduction of 2-3 orders of magnitude.

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