Thermal regime, stability, and evolution of the continental lithosphere

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In my research, I try to determine how the temperature varies at great depth in the rigid outer shell of the Earth beneath the continents. In order to calculate these temperatures, we need both observations and models. The observations are the heat flux and heat production of the rocks near the Earth surface. The models are based on the solutions to the heat equation. We can check how well our models predict the temperature and improve our estimates by comparing our calculations with seismic observations that determine how seismic velocities vary with depth. Because the seismic velocity depends on temperature, we can adjust our models to fit the seismic observations. Conversely, our temperature calculations are used to understand how the composition and temperature affect seismic velocities.