2014-12-11

2014 SPA Contest - Jan Globig - African lithosphere geometry: Geoid and elevation constraints on Moho and LAB topography

Hello, my name is Jan Globig and I am a PhD student financed by a 3-years Marie Curie Fellowship. I am studying the structure of the lithosphere of the African continent. To do this I am using a numeric method (Fullea et al., 2007) which allows to calculate the thickness of the Earth's crust and underlying lithopsheric mantle from elevation and Geoid data, under isotatic conditions. My motivation is to produce a new crustal and lithospheric thickness map for Africa, because data on these parameters are very rare and they can help to understand the origin of some enigmatic topographic features of the continent (e.g. the African Superswell).

In the figures below you can see the locations of available knowledge on crustal thickness or depth to Moho (left) and an preliminary example of a calculated crustal thickness map (right). The depth to Moho from seismic studies in the left figure, where compiled in order to evaluate the accuracy of the new crustal map for Africa. 

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