"Lithosphere" is a mechanical concept implying strength and relative permanence. Unfortunately, the term has also been applied to the surface thermal boundary layer (TBL) and a shallow enriched geochemical reservoir, features having nothing to do with strength. The "strong" lithosphere is about one half the thickness of the TBL. The bottom of the elastic plate, the maximum depths of midplate an...

Earth’s dominant form of magmatism occurs at mid-ocean ridges (MORs), producing the igneous crust for two-thirds of the planet’s surface and conveying significant heat and material fluxes from the mantle to the world’s oceans. Mid-ocean-ridge basalt (MORB) magmas form from upwelling compositionally heterogeneous mantle1 by aggregation of near-fractional melts beneath spreading centres2. Multipl...

The Global Positioning System (GPS) derived bedrock displacements respond to multiple geophysical effects, ranging from surface elastic loads tectonic sources or viscoelastic uplifts stemming Earth’s viscous mantle. In this study, the GPS-inferred vertical crustal velocities are rigorously estimated in mainland China. We integrate GPS velocity field with Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment ...

Periclase (MgO) is the second most abundant mineral after bridgmanite in the Earth's lower mantle, and its melting behaviour under pressure is important to constrain rheological properties and melting behaviours of the lower mantle materials. Significant discrepancies exist between the melting temperatures of MgO determined by laser-heated diamond anvil cell (LHDAC) and those based on dynamic c...

due to urbanization and population increase, need for metro tunnels, has been considerably increased in urban areas. estimating the surface settlement caused by tunnel excavation is an important task especially where the tunnels are excavated in urban areas or beneath important structures. many models have been established for this purpose by extracting the relationship between the settlement a...

Knowledge of the occurrence and mobility of carbonate-rich melts in the Earth's mantle is important for understanding the deep carbon cycle and related geochemical and geophysical processes. However, our understanding of the mobility of carbonate-rich melts remains poor. Here we report viscosities of carbonate melts up to 6.2 GPa using a newly developed technique of ultrafast synchrotron X-ray ...