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Eaton et al. 2004
Eaton, D.W., Jones, A.G. and Ferguson, I.J. (2004). Lithospheric anisotropy structure inferred from collocated teleseismic and magnetotelluric observations: Great Slave Lake shear zone, northern Canada. Geophysical Research Letters 31: doi: 10.1029/2004GL020939. issn: 0094-8276.

Accurate interpretation of SKS shear-wave splitting observations requires inherently indeterminate depth information. Magnetotelluric electrical anisotropies are depth-constrained, and thereby offer possible resolution of the SKS conundrum. MT and teleseismic instruments, deployed across the Great Slave Lake shear zone, northern Canada, investigated lithospheric anisotropy and tested a hypothesis that seismic and electrical anisotropy obliquity can infer mantle strain shear-sense. Lithospheric mantle MT strike (N60¿E) differs significantly from crustal MT strike (N30¿E). SKS splitting vectors outside the shear zone exhibit single-layer anisotropy with fast axis parallel to upper-mantle MT strike and oblique to present-day plate motion (N135¿W). Back-azimuth sensitivity at sites within the ~30 km wide shear-zone imply more complex layering, with two-layer inversion yielding an upper layer of ~N20¿E and a lower layer of ~N66¿E. The MT data help to constrain the depth location of SKS anisotropy and, taken together, support a model of fossil lithospheric anisotropy.

BACKGROUND DATA FILES

Abstract

Keywords
Seismology, Continental crust, Seismology, Lithosphere and upper mantle, Tectonophysics, Continental tectonics—general
Journal
Geophysical Research Letters
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Publisher
American Geophysical Union
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