• Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage
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We present a seismic waveform tomography of the upper mantle beneath the central and eastern Mediterranean down to the mantle transition zone. Our methodology incorporates in a consistent manner the information from body and multimode surface waves, source effects, frequency dependence, wavefront healing, anisotropy and attenuation. This allows us to jointly image multiple parameters of the crust and upper mantle. Based on the data from ∼ 17 000 unique source–receiver pairs, gathered from 80 earthquakes, we image radially anisotropic S velocity, P velocity and density. We use a multi-scale approach in which the longest periods (100–150 s) are inverted first, broadening to a period band of 28–150 s. Thanks to a strategy that combines long-period signals and a separation of body and surface wave signals, we are able to image down to the mantle transition zone in most of the model domain. Our model shows considerable detail in especially the northern part of the domain, where data coverage is very dense, and displays a number of clear and coherent high-velocity structures across the domain that can be linked to episodes of current and past subduction. These include the Hellenic subduction zone, the Cyprus subduction zone and high-velocity anomalies beneath the Italian peninsula and the Dinarides. This model is able to explain data from new events that were not included in the inversion. Solid Earth, 11 (2) ISSN:1869-9510 ISSN:1869-9529

Abstract. The Geodynamic World Builder is an open-source code library intended to set up initial conditions for computational geodynamic models in both Cartesian and spherical geometries. The inputs for the JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)-style parameter file are not mathematical but rather a structured nested list describing tectonic features, e.g., a continental, an oceanic or a subducting plate. Each of these tectonic features can be assigned a specific temperature profile (e.g., plate model) or composition label (e.g., uniform). For each point in space, the Geodynamic World Builder can return the composition and/or temperature. It is written in C++ but can be used in almost any language through its C and Fortran wrappers. Various examples of 2-D and 3-D subduction settings are presented. The Geodynamic World Builder comes with an extensive online user manual.

Abstract. The glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) signal at present day is constrained via the joint inversion of geodetic observations and GIA models for a region encompassing northern Europe, the British Isles, and the Barents Sea. The constraining data are Global Positioning System (GPS) vertical crustal velocities and GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) gravity data. When the data are inverted with a set of GIA models, the best-fit model for the vertical motion signal has a χ2 value of approximately 1 and a maximum a posteriori uncertainty of 0.3–0.4mm yr−1. An elastic correction is applied to the vertical land motion rates that accounts for present-day changes to terrestrial hydrology as well as recent mass changes of ice sheets and glaciered regions. Throughout the study area, mass losses from Greenland dominate the elastic vertical signal and combine to give an elastic correction of up to +0.5mm yr−1 in central Scandinavia. Neglecting to use an elastic correction may thus introduce a small but persistent bias in model predictions of GIA vertical motion even in central Scandinavia where vertical motion is dominated by GIA due to past glaciations. The predicted gravity signal is generally less well-constrained than the vertical signal, in part due to uncertainties associated with the correction for contemporary ice mass loss in Svalbard and the Russian Arctic. The GRACE-derived gravity trend is corrected for present-day ice mass loss using estimates derived from the ICESat and CryoSat missions, although a difference in magnitude between GRACE-inferred and altimetry-inferred regional mass loss rates suggests the possibility of a non-negligible GIA response here either from millennial-scale or Little Ice Age GIA.

International audience; Abstract. The geotherm in subduction zones is thought to vary as a function of the subduction rate and the age of the subducting lithosphere. Along a single subduction zone the rate of subduction may strongly vary due to changes in the angle between the trench and the plate convergence vector, i.e., the subduction obliquity, due to trench curvature. We currently observe such curvature in, e.g., the Marianas, Chile and Aleutian trenches. Recently, strong along-strike variations in subduction obliquity were proposed to have caused a major temperature contrast between Cretaceous geological records of western and central Turkey. We test here whether first-order temperature variation in a subduction zone may be caused by variation in the trench geometry using simple thermo-kinematic finite-element 3-D numerical models. We prescribe the trench geometry by means of a simple mathematical function and compute the mantle flow in the mantle wedge by solving the equation of mass and momentum conservation. We then solve the energy conservation equation until steady state is reached. We analyze the results (i) in terms of mantle wedge flow with emphasis on the trench-parallel component and (ii) in terms of temperature along the plate interface by means of maps and the depth–temperature path at the interface. In our experiments, the effect of the trench curvature on the geotherm is substantial. A small obliquity yields a small but not negligible trench-parallel mantle flow, leading to differences of 30 °C along-strike of the model. Advected heat causes such temperature variations (linked to the magnitude of the trench-parallel component of velocity). With increasing obliquity, the trench-parallel component of the velocity consequently increases and the temperature variation reaches 200 °C along-strike. Finally, we discuss the implication of our simulations for the ubiquitous oblique systems that are observed on Earth and the limitations of our modeling approach. Lateral variations in plate sinking rate associated with curvature will further enhance this temperature contrast. We conclude that the synchronous metamorphic temperature contrast between central and western Turkey may well have resulted from reconstructed major variations in subduction obliquity.