ALBERT

Description: SUMMARY We propose an innovative approach to mapping CMB topography from seismic P -wave traveltime inversions: instead of treating mantle velocity and CMB topography as independent parameters, as has been done so far, we account for their coupling by mantle flow, as formulated by Forte & Peltier. This approach rests on the assumption that P data are sufficiently sensitive to thermal heterogeneity, and that compositional heterogeneity, albeit important in localized regions of the mantle (e.g. within the D ″ region), is not sufficiently strong to govern the pattern of mantle-wide convection and hence the CMB topography. The resulting tomographic maps of CMB topography are physically sound, and they resolve the known discrepancy between images obtained from classic tomography on the basis of core-reflected and core-refracted seismic phases. Since the coefficients of mantle velocity structure are the only free parameters of the inversion, this joint tomography–geodynamics approach reduces the number of parameters; nevertheless the corresponding mantle models fit the seismic data as well as the purely seismic ones.

Description: SUMMARY We propose an innovative approach to mapping CMB topography from seismic P -wave traveltime inversions: instead of treating mantle velocity and CMB topography as independent parameters, as has been done so far, we account for their coupling by mantle flow, as formulated by Forte & Peltier. This approach rests on the assumption that P data are sufficiently sensitive to thermal heterogeneity, and that compositional heterogeneity, albeit important in localized regions of the mantle (e.g. within the D ″ region), is not sufficiently strong to govern the pattern of mantle-wide convection and hence the CMB topography. The resulting tomographic maps of CMB topography are physically sound, and they resolve the known discrepancy between images obtained from classic tomography on the basis of core-reflected and core-refracted seismic phases. Since the coefficients of mantle velocity structure are the only free parameters of the inversion, this joint tomography–geodynamics approach reduces the number of parameters; nevertheless the corresponding mantle models fit the seismic data as well as the purely seismic ones.

Description: We conduct joint tomographic inversions of P and S travel time observations to obtain models of delta v_P  and delta v_S in the entire mantle. We adopt a recently published method which takes into account the geodynamic coupling between mantle heterogeneity and core-mantle boundary (CMB) topography by viscous flow, where sensitivity of the seismic travel times to the CMB is accounted for implicitly in the inversion (i.e. the CMB topography is not explicitly inverted for). The seismic maps of the Earth's mantle and CMB topography that we derive can explain the inverted seismic data while being physically consistent with each other. The approach involved scaling P-wave velocity (more sensitive to the CMB) to density anomalies, in the assumption that mantle heterogeneity has a purely thermal origin, so that velocity and density heterogeneity are proportional to one another. On the other hand, it has sometimes been suggested that S-wave velocity might be more directly sensitive to temperature, while P heterogeneity is more strongly influenced by chemical composition. In the present study, we use only S-, and not P-velocity, to estimate density heterogeneity through linear scaling, and hence the sensitivity of core-reflected P phases to mantle structure. Regardless of whether density is more closely related to P- or S-velocity, we think it is worthwhile to explore both scaling approaches in our efforts to explain seismic data. The similarity of the results presented in this study to those obtained by scaling P-velocity to density suggests that compositional anomaly has a limited impact on viscous flow in the deep mantle.