Synonyms
Deep mantle; Deep Earth
Definition
Seismic tomography. An inverse method that utilizes seismic wave travel times and/or waveforms to estimate Earth’s seismic velocity and density structure, either regionally or globally.
Forward modeling. The procedure involving the generation of models that predicts observations, which is frequently used in deep Earth seismology.
Phase transition. A crystallographic rearrangement of atoms in a mineral that occurs at high pressure.
D″. The depth shell of Earth occupying the lowermost 200–300 km of Earth’s lower mantle. (Pronounced “D-double-prime”).
Introduction
Earth’s interior has three fundamentally distinct divisions: (1) the relatively buoyant and thin outer crust, which averages roughly 6–7 km in thickness beneath oceans and 30–40 km in continents; (2) the mantle, which extends to nearly half way to Earth’s center; and (3) the dominantly iron (Fe) core, which has a fluid outer part and a solid inner part. Figure 1highlights these basic...
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Garnero, E.J., McNamara, A.K., Tyburczy, J.A. (2011). Earth’s Structure, Lower Mantle. In: Gupta, H.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Solid Earth Geophysics. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8702-7_131
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