Mantle dynamics, postglacial rebound and the radial viscosity profile

Abstract

We infer the radial viscosity structure of the Earth’s mantle from observations of long-wavelength geoid, glacially-induced sea-level changes, and changes in the Earth’s rotation and gravitational field. We employ a combination of forward and formal inverse modeling of long-term mantle circulation driven by large-scale density differences deduced from seismic tomography. Based on the resulting unscaled mantle viscosity profiles, we model the time-dependent glacial isostatic adjustment of the Earth related to past and present changes in the ice-ocean mass imbalance and we deduce scaled mantle viscosity profiles, which simultaneously fit the long-wavelength geoid constraint and glacially-induced changes of the Earth’s shape. Three mantle viscosity profiles are fitting the observational data equally well. All profiles are characterized by a two order of magnitude variation of viscosity within the Earth’s mantle. Variations of viscosity in the upper mantle are less than one order of magnitude. In the lower mantle, the viscosity differs significantly with depth for all models. Average viscosities in the upper and lower mantle are around (2−5)×10 20 and (1−3)×10 22 Pa s, respectively.