LitMod2D_2.0: an improved integrated geophysical-petrological modeling tool for the physical interpretation of upper mantle anomalies

Ajay Kumar*, Manel Fernàndez, Ivone Jiménez-Munt, Montserrat Torne, Jaume Vergés, Juan Carlos Afonso

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    20 Citations (Scopus)
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    Abstract

    LitMod2D integrates geophysical and petrological data sets to produce the thermal, density, and seismic velocity structure of the lithosphere and upper mantle. We present a new LitMod2D_2.0 package with improvements focused on (i) updated anelastic attenuation correction for anharmonic seismic velocities, (ii) chemical composition in the sublithospheric mantle, and (iii) incorporation of sublithospheric mantle anomalies. Sublithospheric mantle anomalies can be defined with different chemical composition, temperature, seismic velocities, and a combination of them, allowing the application of LitMod2D_2.0 to regions affected by mantle upwelling, subduction, delamination, and metasomatism. We demonstrate the potential application of LitMod2D_2.0 to such regions and the sensitivity of thermal and compositional anomalies on density and seismic velocities through synthetic models. Results show nonlinearity between the sign of thermal and seismic velocity anomalies, and that S wave velocities are more sensitive to temperature whereas P wave velocities are to composition. In a synthetic example of subduction, we show the sensitivity of sublithospheric mantle anomalies associated with the slab and the corner flow on surface observables (elevation, geoid height, and gravity anomalies). A new open-source graphic user interface is incorporated in the new package. The output of the code is simplified by writing only the relevant physical parameters (temperature, pressure, material type, density, and seismic velocities) to allow the user using predefined post-processing codes from a toolbox (flexure, mineral assemblages, synthetic passive seismological data, and tomography) or designing new ones. We demonstrate a post-processing example calculating synthetic seismic tomography, Rayleigh surface-wave dispersion curves, and P wave receiver functions from the output file of LitMod2D_2.0.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article numbere2019GC008777
    Pages (from-to)1-19
    Number of pages19
    JournalGeochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems
    Volume21
    Issue number3
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Mar 2020

    Bibliographical note

    Copyright the Author(s) 2020. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.

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