Thickening model of the continental lithosphere

Summary. The thickening plate theory proposed by Yoshii and Parker & Oldenburg for the oceanic lithosphere is extended to include the continental lithosphere. The theory is based on the assumption that the lithosphere—asthenosphere boundary is a solidus and that as a result solidification of the top of the asthenosphere is occurring. Observational data imply that the relationship between the plate thickness and basement age for the North American continent is y = 1.7 √ t + (50 ± 10), where y (km) is the plate thickness and t (Myr) is the basement age.
The theory is tested against changes with basement age of the observed surface heat-flow and seismic estimate of plate thickness. The following conclusions are inferred:
(1) The changes both of the observed heat flow and plate thickness with basement age are explained by this theory.
(2) The surface erosion and vertical distribution of radiogenic heat sources are important factors in controlling the thickening process of the continental lithosphere.
(3) The equality of the average surface heat-flow over the oceans and over the continents is a consequence of a faster release of latent heat at the lithosphere—asthenosphere boundary under the oceans, instead of a higher heat production in the continental crust.     

A confirmed earthquake in continental Antarctica

Summary. An earthquake of magnitude ( M _b) 4.5 has been located by the International Seismological Centre, near 81°S, 37°E in the continental platform of east Antarctica, about 1200 km from the coast of Dronning Maud Land, and 500 km from the Pole of Inaccessibility. The event was found by the Centre's 'search' procedure, which is undertaken with a deliberate delay of about two years. It occurred on 1982 November 4, and its position is well determined from five stations in Antarctica, and four farther afield. This is the first earthquake definitely located in the interior of the Antarctic continent, although there have been some earlier less well established claims, and other earthquakes have occurred near the coast, or associated with areas of volcanism or ice movement.     

中国陆地海岸线尺度效应研究(英文)

Spatial scale is a fundamental problem in Geography. Scale effect caused by fractal characteristic of coastline becomes a common focus of coastal zone managers and researchers. In this study, based on DEM and remote sensing images, multi-scale continental coastlines of China were extracted and the fractal characteristic was analyzed. The results are shown as follows. (1) The continental coastline of China fits the fractal model, and the fractal dimension is 1.195. (2) The scale effects with fractal dimensions of coastline have significant differences according to uplift and subsidence segments along the continental coastlines of China. (3) The fractal dimension of coastline has significant spatial heterogeneity according to the coastline types. The fractal dimension of sandy coastline located in Luanhe River plain is 1.109. The dimension of muddy coastline located in northern Jiangsu Plain is 1.059, while that of rocky coastline along southeastern Fujian is 1.293. (4) The length of rocky coastline is affected by scale more than that of muddy and sandy coastline. Since coastline is the conjunction of sea, land and air surface, the study of coastline scale effect is one of the scientific bases for the researches on air-sea-land interaction in multi-scales.     

Excitation of thermoconvective waves in the continental lithosphere

For flows associated with small strains, the rheology of rocks is described by the linear integral (having a memory) law, which reduces to the Andrade law in the case of constant stress. A continental lithosphere with such a rheology is overstable. Thermoconvective waves that propagate through the lithosphere with minimal attenuation have a period of about 200  Myr and a wavelength of the order of 400  km. An initial temperature point-concentrated perturbation in the lithosphere excites amplitude-modulated thermoconvective waves (wave packets). When the initial perturbation occurs in a finite area, thermoconvective waves propagate outwards from this area, and thermoconvective oscillations (standing waves) are established inside the area. Thermoconvective waves induce oscillations of the Earth' surface, accompanied by sedimentation and erosion, and can be considered as a mechanism for the distribution of sediments on continental cratons.     

Erosion and the age dependence of continental heat flow

Summary. Erosion of continental crust has two effects on surface heat flow: a decrease due to the removal of heat-producing elements, and an increase due to the movement of hot rock towards the surface. In an orogenic belt, where erosion may remove tens of kilometres of material, these effects are important over time-spans comparable with the life of the belt as an elevated region.
An expression is derived which relates surface heat flow to time, heat flow through the deep lithosphere, the distribution of heat sources and the amount and time constant of erosion. The variability of crustal processes permits wide ranges of values for these parameters and geologically reasonable parametral combinations can readily be found which satisfy the surface heat flow observations. These combinations can account for the long time-scale of surface heat flow decay, and the influence of erosion on 'reduced' heat flow has important consequences. This approach predicts a relationship between reduced heat flow and age which is close to that observed, and a linear relation between surface heat flow and reduced heat flow similar to that reported by Pollack & Chapman. The intercept on q ₀– A ₀ plots (the reduced heat flow) has a physical meaning which changes with time and should not be interpreted as, for example, the heat flux across the Moho.
We conclude that an important part of the observed variation of surface heat flow with age may be explained by the effects of erosion and the variability of crustal processes. In its range of greatest variation surface heat flow mainly reflects these crustal processes and should not be used to infer directly the thermal development of the subcrustal lithosphere.     

Long-term climato-limnological cycles found in a 3.5-million-year continental record

Analysis of physical properties in long sediment cores (BDP96) from Academician Ridge in Lake Baikal indicates that major climato-limnological changes during the past 3.5 Myr occurred at about 2.5–2.8, 1.7–1.9, and 0.9–1.2 Ma, which were close to times of major geomagnetic polarity reversals (Matuyama/Gauss, Olduvai, Jaramillo + Matuyama/Brunhes). The principal climato-limnological oscillation has a long-term period of nearly 1,000 kyr, which corresponds to the periodicity of fluctuation in solar insolation. It also seems to be related to geomagnetic field intensity. Other long-term period of 400 kyr corresponds to Milankovitch parameters of eccentricity. These results suggest that changes in solar insolation were closely related to long-term environmental variations in the deep continental interior.