Heterogeneity, Anisotropy, and Anelasticity in the Lowermost Mantle and Inner Core

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The proposed research concentrates on developing constraints on the fabric (the scale lengths and shapes of complex structures) in the inner core and lower mantle of the Earth from analysis and forward modeling of seismic waves interacting with these regions. Knowledge of the fabric of the inner core will help in understanding the process of solidification of the solid inner core from the liquid outer core, which is an energy source for maintaining the Earth's magnetic field. Knowledge of the fabric of the lower mantle of the Earth is important to models of mantle convection, deep plume formation, and chemical models of the mantle. Algorithms of forward modeling of the seismic wavefield developed in this research, which involve parallel clustered computing, are important to both resource exploration and to physical science and engineering applications requiring numerical modeling of phenomena described by systems of linear equations containing three-dimensionally varying physical properties.