Seismic waves tell us that something unusual is happening in the lowermost few hundred kilometers of Earth’s mantle. Beneath Africa and the Pacific lie two enormous thermochemical structures known as Large Low-Shear-Velocity Provinces (LLSVPs). These “large blobs” are slower to transmit shear waves, but beyond that, their physical nature remains one of the biggest open questions in deep Earth geod ...[Read More]
Is the lower mantle boring? For a long time, the lower mantle was thought to be relatively featureless and uniform compared to the more dynamic upper mantle. But recent seismic observations are challenging that idea, especially when we look near the base of the mantle. Recent studies from Maureen Long’s group (Creasy et al. 2017, Wolf et al. 2019, Reiss et al. 2019, Wolf & Long, 2023) and othe ...[Read More]
In this new blog, Dr. Kai Li (GFZ Potsdam) talk about his PhD work, where he used accordion numerical models to explore the tectonic history of the South China Sea. His PhD research focuses on the impact of orogenic inheritance on rifts and rifted margins, employing advanced geodynamic modeling techniques. Have you ever tried to fit the west coast of Africa and the east coast of South America toge ...[Read More]