Geology White Papers
The Electric Moho
Overview Since Mohorovicic discovered a dramatic increase in compressional seismic velocity at a depth of 54 km beneath the Kulpa Valley in Croatia, the “Moho” has become arguably the most important seismological horizon in the Earth owing to its role as defining the crust-mantle boundary. It is now known to be a ubiquitous feature of Earth, being found beneath both the continents and the oceans, and is commonly assumed to separate lower-crustal mafic rocks from upper-mantle ultramafic rocks. Electromagnetic experiments conducted to date, however, have failed to detect a corresponding change in electrical conductivity at the base of the crust, although one might be expected on the basis of laboratory measurements. Here we report electromagnetic data from the Slave craton, northern Canada, which show a step-change in conductivity at Moho depths.
| Publisher | Geological Survey of Canada | File Format | PDF, requires Acrobat Rdr 5 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Date Published | January 2001 | Downloads | 117 |
| Format | White Papers | ||
| Topics | |||
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