Mantle Discontinuities

Aug 16, 2018

Seismic discontinuities in the mantle provide critical insight into thermal and compositional states of Earth’s mantle and its dynamics. The 410- and 660-km seismic discontinuities are observed globally, and are generally linked to phase transformations of olivine → wadsleyite and ringwoodite → bridgmanite + ferropericlase. The 520- and 560-km discontinuities are usually less observed and studied, and are caused by phase transformation of wadsleyite → ringwoodite, and exsolution of Ca-pv from garnet. We analyze waveforms of SS precuros recorded by global stations to investigate global variations of the 520- and 560-km discontinuities.

Earth Deep Interior
Dongdong Tian
Dongdong Tian
Associate Professor

I’m a seismologist with broad interests in structure of Earth’s deep interior and mechanims of small seismic events.

Publications

Songqiao Shawn Wei, Peter M. Shearer, Carolina Lithgow-Bertelloni, Lars Stixrude, Dongdong Tian (2020). Oceanic plateau of the Hawaiian mantle plume head subducted to the uppermost lower mantle. Science.

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Dongdong Tian, Mingda Lv, S. Shawn Wei, Susannah M. Dorfman, Peter M. Shearer (2020). Global variations of Earth's 520- and 560-km discontinuities. Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

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