Seismic Determination of Elastic Anisotropy and Mantle Flow
Jeffrey Park 1 and
Yang Yu 1
1 Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, P.O. Box 6666, New Haven, CT 06511
When deformed, many rocks develop anisotropic elastic properties. On many seismic records, a long-period (100 to 250 seconds), "quasi-Love" wave with elliptical polarization arrives slightly after the Love wave but before the Rayleigh wave. Mantle anisotropy is sufficient to explain these observations qualitatively as long as the "fast" axis of symmetry is approximately horizontal. Quasi-Love observations for several propagation paths near Pacific Ocean subduction zones are consistent with either flow variations in the mantle within or beneath subducting plates or variations in the direction of fossil spreading in older parts of the Pacific plate.
Submitted on March 18, 1993
Accepted on May 20, 1993
