Articles | Volume 11, issue 4
https://doi.org/10.5194/se-11-1551-2020
https://doi.org/10.5194/se-11-1551-2020
Research article
 | 
26 Aug 2020
Research article |  | 26 Aug 2020

Increased density of large low-velocity provinces recovered by seismologically constrained gravity inversion

Wolfgang Szwillus, Jörg Ebbing, and Bernhard Steinberger

Data sets

SubMachine: Web-Based Tools for Exploring Seismic Tomography and Other Models of Earth's Deep Interior (http://www.earth.ox.ac.uk/~smachine) K. Hosseini, K. J. Matthews, K. Sigloch, G. E. Shephard, M. Domeier, and M. Tsekhmistrenko https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GC007431

Model code and software

PerpleX J. A. D. Connolly http://www.perplex.ethz.ch/

Mineos G. Masters, J. H. Woodhouse and G. Freeman https://geodynamics.org/cig/software/mineos/

llvp-density W. Szwillus https://github.com/wokos/llvp-density

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Short summary
At the bottom of the mantle (2850 km depth) two large volumes of reduced seismic velocity exist underneath Africa and the Pacific. Their reduced velocity can be explained by an increased temperature or a different chemical composition. We use the gravity field to determine the density distribution inside the Earth's mantle and find that it favors a distinct chemical composition over a purely thermal cause.