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Science 30 July 2004:
Vol. 305. no. 5684, pp. 660 - 662
DOI: 10.1126/science.1099181
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Reports

Foundering Lithosphere Imaged Beneath the Southern Sierra Nevada, California, USA

Oliver S. Boyd,* Craig H. Jones, Anne F. Sheehan

Seismic tomography reveals garnet-rich crust and mantle lithosphere descending into the upper mantle beneath the southeastern Sierra Nevada. The descending lithosphere consists of two layers: an iron-rich eclogite above a magnesium-rich garnet peridotite. These results place descending eclogite above and east of high P wave speed material previously imaged beneath the southern Great Valley, suggesting a previously unsuspected coherence in the lithospheric removal process.

Department of Geological Sciences, University of Colorado at Boulder, 2200 Colorado Avenue, Boulder, CO 80309–0399, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: oliver.boyd{at}colorado.edu

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