Heterogeneity, Anisotropy, and Seismic Attenuation in Earth's Inner Core and Lower Mantle

地球内核和下地幔的小尺度结构组构对于理解地幔对流、板块循环、地幔柱形成和内核凝固，包括内核边界的动态变形及其与内核和地幔的差异旋转和地球磁场的关系是重要的。将进行地震建模，以便对对这些过程很重要的内核和最低地幔的小尺度（1-1000公里）组构进行成像。 将对PKIKP地震相的波形进行建模，以确定内核粘弹性的深度依赖性、横向变化、各向异性和频率依赖性，以及晶体组构，以约束内核固化模型。还将进行地震波形建模，以约束最低地幔的统计和确定性结构，这可以提供重要的特征，可以区分该地区非均质结构的拟议起源：残余板，固-固相变，原始地幔池，部分熔融和核-幔化学反应。

The small-scale structural fabric of Earth's inner core and lower mantle is important to the understanding of mantle convection, slab cycling, plume formation, and solidification of the inner core, including the dynamic deformation of the inner core boundary and its relation to the differential rotation of the inner core and mantle and the earth's magnetic field. Seismic modeling will be performed to image the small-scale (1-1000 km) fabric of the inner core and lowermost mantle that are important to these processes. Waveforms of the PKIKP seismic phase will be modeled to determine the depth dependence, lateral variation, anisotropy, and frequency dependence of inner core visco-elasticity, and crystalline fabric to constrain models of inner core solidification. Seismic waveform modeling will also be performed to constrain the statistical and deterministic structure of the lowermost mantle, which can provide important signatures that can enable a discrimination among the proposed origins of the heterogeneous structure in this region: remnant slabs, solid-solid phase transitions, pools of primitive mantle, partial melt, and core-mantle chemical reactions.--