THE INFLUENCE OF TEMPERATURE GRADIENT AND VARIATION OF COMPOSITION IN THE MANTLE ON THE COMPUTATION OF DENSITY VALUES IN EARTH MODEL A

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The effect of errors in the expression for dp/dr used in constructing the Earth Model A is examined. It is shown that, for a 10 per cent error in dp/dr arising from possible deviations from adiabatic gradients and uniform chemical composition in the regions B and D, the maximum error in the density ρ in the mantle of Model A would be only 0.07 g/cm³. This is less than one-quarter of the error that would be entailed if a 10 per cent correction to dp/dr were applied throughout the mantle. Thus temperature deviations to any likely extent cannot be considered as serious sources of error in the density distribution of Model A.