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Flores & Lay 2005
Flores, C. and Lay, T. (2005). The trouble with seeing double. Geophysical Research Letters 32: doi: 10.1029/2005GL024366. issn: 0094-8276.

The recently discovered phase transition for (Mg,Fe)SiO3 from perovskite to post-perovskite structure for pressure-temperature conditions in the lowermost mantle provides a plausible mechanism to explain a several percent shear velocity increase detected at the top of the D″ region in many regions. The phase transition has a large positive Clapeyron slope, and given the likely presence of a strong temperature increase just above the core-mantle boundary, D″ conditions may reintersect the phase boundary, resulting in a thin layer of perovskite below a lens of post-perovskite, separated by a few percent velocity decrease. Detection of such a velocity decrease is shown to be much harder than detection of the shallower velocity increase due to fundamental properties of seismic waves; purported observations in support of a double-discontinuity are re-evaluated based on waveform modeling. Waveform stacking procedures are required for reliable detection of the lower half of any double-crossing of the phase boundary.

BACKGROUND DATA FILES

Abstract

Keywords
Mineralogy and Petrology, Mineral and crystal chemistry, Seismology, Mantle (1212, 1213, 8124), Tectonophysics, Dynamics of lithosphere and mantle, general, Tectonophysics, Dynamics, convection currents, and mantle plumes, Tectonophysics, Earth's interior, composition and state (1212, 7207, 7208, 8105)
Journal
Geophysical Research Letters
http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
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