Variations of the effective elastic thickness over China and surroundings and their relation to the lithosphere dynamics

Chen, Bo; Chen, Chao; Kaban, Mikhail K.; Du, Jinsong; Liang, Qingzhong; Thomas, Maik

doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2012.12.022

Cited by 61 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…Topography and Bouguer gravity are employed to calculate the coherence with 600 × 600‐km window size. The NSGL is generally characterized by low elastic thickness, possibly indicating the inherited weakness proposed by Chen et al (). High elastic thickness is observed in the eastern part of Sichuan Basin, which may indicate the existence of the old cratonic nucleus (Yangtze craton, Chen et al, ).…”

Section: Methods and Datamentioning

confidence: 87%

“…The NSGL is generally characterized by low elastic thickness, possibly indicating the inherited weakness proposed by Chen et al (). High elastic thickness is observed in the eastern part of Sichuan Basin, which may indicate the existence of the old cratonic nucleus (Yangtze craton, Chen et al, ). The WNCC also appears rigid, which is consistent with the oldest Archean cratons (Kusky et al, ).…”

Section: Methods and Datamentioning

confidence: 87%

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Lithospheric Alteration, Intraplate Crustal Deformation, and Topography in Eastern China

Deng

Levandowski

2018

Tectonics

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Topography can be directly observed, but what controls topographic variation is not readily known. To investigate a prominent and remarkably consistent along‐trend topographic gradient belt (TGB) in intraplate eastern China and its connection to ongoing deformation and geodynamics, we examine the regional density structure of the crust and mantle lithosphere. We first use S velocities to derive an initial density and then refine the density model by joint inversion of topography and gravity. We use the final density model and receiver functions to strip away topographic contributions from the crust, and we subsequently estimate the thickness of the mantle lithosphere required to satisfy flexural isostasy. Crustal buoyancy overcompensates for the elevation change across the TGB. East of the TGB (eastern north China craton and southeastern south China), the lithosphere is thin (~ 90 km), suggesting that not only the eastern north China craton but also much of the eastern China has experienced lithospheric dismemberment. The TGB behaves as an important contour for the lithospheric thickness, except for the northeast China and Qinling‐Dabie. Proposed refertilization of the altered mantle lithosphere in the east side of TGB would result in even lower lithospheric thickness, while hydration and asthenosphere upwelling have the opposite effect. This systematic calculation gives a regional analysis of eastern China and could be a useful guide for the regions lacking seismic investigations.

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Section: Methods and Datamentioning

confidence: 87%

Section: Methods and Datamentioning

confidence: 87%

Lithospheric Alteration, Intraplate Crustal Deformation, and Topography in Eastern China

Deng

Levandowski

2018

Tectonics

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“…Besides, the northward motion of the Indian subcontinent that followed the onset of continental collision with Asia has produced extensive deformation in the Tibet area (Yin & Harrison, ). Owing to the relatively rigid lithosphere of the Tarim basin in the west, Qaidam basin in the north and Sichuan basin in the east (Chen et al, , ), large deformations have been localized in the relatively weak lithosphere of the Songpan‐Ganzi block (Chen et al, ) near the boundaries of the rigid blocks, resulting in the crust thickening as well as in the northern “Moho depression” in Tibet. Between these two Moho depressions, the relative shallower Moho depth in the central Tibet may indicate that this region is isostatically compensated by the lower‐velocity (and consequently, by low density) mantle (Kind et al, ; Nábělek et al, ).…”

Section: Moho Structure Of the Tibetan Plateaumentioning

confidence: 99%

Moho Beneath Tibet Based on a Joint Analysis of Gravity and Seismic Data

Zhao

Liu

Chen

et al. 2020

Geochem Geophys Geosyst

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We use the improved Parker‐Oldenburg's formulas that include a reference depth into the exponential term and employ the Gauss‐fast Fourier transform method to determine Moho depth beneath the Tibetan Plateau. The synthetic models demonstrate that the improved Parker's formula has high accuracy with the maximum absolute error less than 0.25 mGal compared to the analytical solution. Two inversion parameters, that is, the reference depth and the density contrast, are essential for the Moho estimation based on the gravity field, and they need to be determined in advance to obtain correct results. Therefore, the Moho estimates derived from existing seismic studies are used to reduce the nonuniqueness of the gravity inversion and to determine these parameters by searching for the maximum correlation between the gravity‐inverted and seismic‐derived Moho depths. Another critical issue is to remove beforehand the gravity effects of other factors, which affect the observed gravity field besides Moho variations. In addition to the topography, the gravity effects of the sedimentary layer and crystalline crust are removed based on existing crustal models, while the upper mantle impact is determined based on the seismic tomography model. The inversion results show that the Moho structure under the Tibetan plateau is very complex with the depths varying from about 30–40 km in the surrounding basins (e.g., Ganges basin, Sichuan basin, and Tarim basin) to 60–80 km within the plateau. This considerable difference up to 40 km on the Moho depth reveals the substantial uplift and thickening of the crust in the Tibetan Plateau. Furthermore, two visible “Moho depression belts” are observed within the plateau with the maximum Moho deepening along the Indus‐Tsangpo Suture and along the northern margin of Tibet bounding the Tarim basin with the relatively shallow Moho in central Tibet between them. The southern “belt” is likely formed in compressional environment, where the Indian plate underthrusts northward beneath the Tibetan Plateau, while the northern one could be formed by the southward underthrust of the Asian lithosphere beneath Tibet.

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“…In particular, for the Arabian plate, published geological cross sections [ Perotti et al ., ] have been considered. This approach has been successfully used in previous works including T e estimations [e.g., Braitenberg et al ., ; Chen et al ., ]. The corrected topography ( H ) is estimated as follows:

\begin{matrix} left \\ H = k \cdot t + S \cdot (ρ_{s} - 2.67) / 2.67 \\ k = 1 f o r land, k = (2.67 - 1.03) / 2.67 f o r the sea, \end{matrix}

where S is the thickness of sediments, t is the topography, ρ s is the vertically averaged density of sediments, and 2.67 g/cm 3 is the standard density of the uppermost crystalline crust.…”

Section: Initial Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In particular, for the Arabian plate, published geological cross sections [Perotti et al, 2011] have been considered. This approach has been successfully used in previous works including T e estimations [e.g., Braitenberg et al, 2003;Chen et al, 2013]. The corrected topography (H) is estimated as follows:…”

Section: Initial Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Effective elastic thickness of the Arabian plate: Weak shield versus strong platform

Chen

Kaban

Khrepy

et al. 2015

Geophysical Research Letters

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The fan wavelet method has been employed to calculate high‐resolution maps of variations of the effective elastic thickness (EET) for the Arabian plate and surroundings. As the initial data, we use high‐resolution gravity field, topography, and recent models of sedimentary basins. The western part of the plate is generally characterized by low to midvalues of EET (10–30 km) while the eastern one by high values (50 km and more in the core). This finding confirms that the pronounced asymmetry of the plate is rather associated with fundamental structural differences of the lithosphere than with a forced tilt of the plate due to the rifting in the west‐southwest and subduction in the northeast. Therefore, the high topography in the western part of the plate is likely supported by relatively hot mantle that is also responsible for the decrease of EET. These results are generally in agreement with recent seismic tomography models.

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Variations of the effective elastic thickness over China and surroundings and their relation to the lithosphere dynamics

Cited by 61 publications

References 71 publications

Lithospheric Alteration, Intraplate Crustal Deformation, and Topography in Eastern China

Lithospheric Alteration, Intraplate Crustal Deformation, and Topography in Eastern China

Moho Beneath Tibet Based on a Joint Analysis of Gravity and Seismic Data

Effective elastic thickness of the Arabian plate: Weak shield versus strong platform

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