Global Heat Flow Data Compilation and Spherical Harmonic Analysis

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This grant supports the compilation and spherical harmonic analysis of the global ensemble of heat flow measurements published through the end of 1986. The last comprehensive published compilation was made more than a decade earlier, comprising some 5500 the present size of the data set is estimated to exceed 15,000 values, making a new compilation and analysis imperative. Heat flow constitutes the largest energy flux within the earth, and is a first order constraint in predicting temperatures within the outer few hundred kilometers of the planet. Heat flow is, therefore, an important parameter in global and regional geodynamic studies, igneous and metamorphic petrogenesis, paleomagnetism and geochronology, sedimentary diagnosis and hydrocarbon maturation, and a host of other temperature dependent or thermally activated processes within the earth.