The Mantle Transition Zone in Central-Eastern Greenland

Abstract:

We present results of a Receiver Function (RF) study of the mantle transition zone (TZ) in Central-Eastern Greenland. The base of this study is data from 19 broad-band seismometers, which were temporarily installed from 2009 to 2012 in the region between Scoresbysund and Summit (~ 70º N) plus 5 permanent stations from the GLISN network. One half of these stations were installed on the ice, the other half on bedrock.Our analysis is based on low frequency PRF, which use the difference in travel times between converted and not converted phasesat discontinuities. Most of our RFs show clear signals for P410s and P660s. Their delay times suggest a surprisingly thin mantle transition zone for most parts of the study area in comparison to standard Earth models, and much thinner than below other continental shield and platform areas. This could indicate a fairly recent heating of the TZ.

Another observation is an M-shaped signal around the 410 km – discontinuity at some of the stations mainly in the western part around Summit. This observation is contrary to the expected simple negative signal. It may indicate a thin low velocity layer between 410 km and 520 km, as it has previously been observed in several settings based on converted waves and also explosion data.

Most of our stations show positive travel time anomalies for the upper mantle, which again is contrary to simple models of old continental shields.