Active Tectonics

Earth’s Interior Structure

Winter 2007
Mian Liu
Earth’s Internal Structure
S waves cannot travel through liquid!
Seismic ray paths if the Earth has uniform properties
Ray paths for a planet where velocity increases with depth
 Inner core

Outer core

Mantle

A few of many possible seismic ray paths through the Earth

Discovery of the crust-mantle Boundary
By Mohorovicic, 1909
time

distance
Earth’s Internal Structure:
Compositional Layers
 Crust:
 Continental crust (20-70 km)
 Oceanic crust (~6 km)
 Mantle
 Upper mantle
 Lower mantle (660km -
2900 km)
 Core
 Outer core (liquid)
 Inner core
 Earth’s Internal Structure:
Mechanical Layers
 Lithosphere
 Asthenosphere
(weak layer)
 Lower mantle
 Outer Core (liquid)
 Inner Core
 Lehmann discontinuity
Moho (1909) CMB (1914) (1936)
Discovery of the core-mantle boundary
By Gutenburg, 1914
Discovery of the inner core by Inge Lehmann, 1936
Inge Lehmann (1888-1993)
Mantle convection provides the primary drive for plate tectoncis
Tomography
Conceptual Methodology

The earth is divided up into discrete blocks, splines or harmonics. Then a

series of linear equations are constructed by tracing the ray paths through
the series of blocks.
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Surface Wave Tomography