One of the main projects I'm working on these days involves data from the Ontario POLARIS array of seismometers. It's a fantastic project, really, and I feel uniquely privileged in that I'm able to get my grubby mitts on the data so easily; the steering committee's open-data policy is remarkably generous. What I'm working on right now is using the receiver function technique to look for anisotropic layering in the mantle beneath Ontario. Specifically, I'm looking at stations on this swath:
which conveniently has two CNSN permanent stations with large data sets in it. Both of the permanent stations exhibit what looks like complex anisotropic layering in the upper mantle -- more interestingly, they exhibit different complex anisotropic layering in the upper mantle. More specifics on that later; clearly it's critical to get good images from stations BANO, CLPO and OTT, and so determine just how laterally continuous this stuff is. My gut feeling, for what it's worth, is that this sort of thing is ubiquitous; there's no reason the mantle lithosphere in continental regions should be any less complicated than the crust, if it's comparable in age. Our ability to see small features in the mantle just isn't all that great.
I have no idea what any of that means, but it sounds absolutely fascinating. Please keep with the updates!
Posted by: John Cater | August 30, 2004 at 07:35 PM
Hee hee. Well, perhaps I'll have to fire up the Dejargonizer. That was a little dense.
Posted by: Andrew Frederiksen | August 30, 2004 at 09:53 PM