Upper Mantle Dynamics and
Quaternary Climate in Cratonic Areas
International Lithosphere Program (ILP) Regional Co-ordination
Committee CC
1/5
Post-glacial uplift, contemporary movements and gravity
The phenomenon
of glacial isostatic adjustment with its unique temporal signatures is
one of the great opportunities in geosciences to get information about
earth processes. It contains information about the recent climate
forcing, being dependent on the geologically recent on- and off-loading
of ice sheets. It gives a unique chance to study the dynamics and
rheology of the lithosphere and asthenosphere with an increasing
detailed modelling, and it is of fundamental importance in geodesy,
since the global reference frames, Earth rotation and Polar motion are
influenced by it.
Our present knowledge of the rheology of the lower crust is based mostly on petrophysical inference from seismology and heat flow (Blundell et al., 1992). Continuous GPS observations of plate-wide strain, accompanied by seismological investigations, and followed by continuum mechanical modelling of GIA, seismic source and wave propagation, and studies of the post-glacial faults offer a new entry and will add new insights into the role and properties of the lower crust. Observations and models of post-glacial or glacially induced faulting can help to illuminate crustal stress fields and therefore crustal rheology issues. On the lithosphere-mantle scale we expect, mostly on the basis of on-going improvements and densifications of GPS observations, that the fully 3-D observations, augmented by gravity (GRACE and GOCE) and sea level change. Drawing from advances in thermodynamical and climatological ice sheet modelling will retrieve laterally heterogeneous structure of mantle and lithosphere from the observed motions.
Our present knowledge of the rheology of the lower crust is based mostly on petrophysical inference from seismology and heat flow (Blundell et al., 1992). Continuous GPS observations of plate-wide strain, accompanied by seismological investigations, and followed by continuum mechanical modelling of GIA, seismic source and wave propagation, and studies of the post-glacial faults offer a new entry and will add new insights into the role and properties of the lower crust. Observations and models of post-glacial or glacially induced faulting can help to illuminate crustal stress fields and therefore crustal rheology issues. On the lithosphere-mantle scale we expect, mostly on the basis of on-going improvements and densifications of GPS observations, that the fully 3-D observations, augmented by gravity (GRACE and GOCE) and sea level change. Drawing from advances in thermodynamical and climatological ice sheet modelling will retrieve laterally heterogeneous structure of mantle and lithosphere from the observed motions.