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

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0073707Park 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.