Collaborative Research: Laboratory and Field Studies Linking Anisotropic Electrical Conductivity and Deformation in the Mantle

上地幔的一个遥感特征是它的导电性。地表地球物理测量，通常是大地电磁测深，被用来推断这一性质。然而，对产生的电导率横截面的解释必须依赖于实验室测量。研究人员提出了一种独特的大地电磁测量、捕虏体研究和实验室实验相结合的方法，以确定内华达山脉和加利福尼亚州盆地和山脉下上地幔的当前物理状态。此外，他们概述了一系列变形实验，这些实验将限制伴随着盆地和山脉省西缘晚新生代伸展的地幔变形的数量和类型。这个项目的一个特别重要的部分是研究固体硅酸盐成分和不相容的硫化物和硅酸盐熔体所发挥的单独的和可能的协同作用。这项研究的一个关键组成部分将是量化在不同变形和融化过程中引起的电各向异性的量。

0073607Ducea One of the remotely sensed properties of the upper mantle is its electrical conductivity. Surface geophysical measurements, often magnetotelluric soundings, are used to infer this property. Interpretation of the resulting electrical conductivity cross sections must rely on laboratory measurements, however. The investigators propose a unique integration of magnetotelluric measurements, xenolith studies, and laboratory experiments in order to determine the present physical state of the upper mantle beneath the Sierra Nevada and California Basin and Range. Further, they outline a series of deformation experiments that will provide constraints on the amount and type of deformation in the mantle that accompanied the late Cenozoic extension of the western margin of the Basin and Range province. A particularly important part of this project is to examine the separate and possibly synergistic roles played by solid silicate components and immiscible sulfide and silicate melts. A key component of this study will be to quantify the amount of electrical anisotropy induced at various amounts of deformation and melting.