Seismic imaging of structural heterogeneity in Earth's mantle: evidence for large-scale mantle flow

Systematic analyses of earthquake-generated seismic waves have resulted in models of three-dimensional elastic wavespeed structure in Earth's mantle. This paper describes the development and the dominant characteristics of one of the most recently developed models. This model is based on seismic wave travel times and wave shapes from over 100,000 ground motion recordings of earthquakes that occurred between 1980 and 1998. It shows signatures of plate tectonic processes to a depth of about 1,200 km in the mantle, and it demonstrates the presence of large-scale structure throughout the lower 2,000 km of the mantle. Seismological analyses make it increasingly more convincing that geologic processes shaping Earth's surface are intimately linked to physical processes in the deep mantle.