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Magnetotellurics, Crustal Imaging

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Encyclopedia of Solid Earth Geophysics

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series ((EESS))

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Definition

Magnetotelluric (MT) imaging allows electrical characterization of the deep-crust and upper mantle, and can delineate and define fundamental blocks of crust, as well as major structural features like faults, suture zones, etc. The continental crust has been formed from mantle material over the lifetime of the Earth by a series of processes indicating melting, crystallization, metamorphic, erosional, depositional, subduction, and endless reworking events. Magnetotelluric method is sensitive to the conductive phases such as partial melt, fluids, and graphite. Therefore, MT provides highly useful models on electrical conductivity of the crust which serve as complementary to other geophysical models such as seismic and thus helps in deriving realistic crustal models. MT has indeed been applied extensively to study several of the tectonically active regions including subduction zones, continental collision, rift zones, and also cratonic regions. There are many MT/LMT studies...

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Correspondence to Prasanta K. Patro .

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Patro, P.K. (2020). Magnetotellurics, Crustal Imaging. In: Gupta, H.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Solid Earth Geophysics. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10475-7_270-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10475-7_270-1

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