Remaining non-isostatic effects in isostatic-gravimetric Moho determination—is it needed?

Abstract

SUMMARY For long time the study of the Moho discontinuity (or Moho) has been a crucial topic in inferring the dynamics of the Earth's interior, and with profitable result it is mapped by seismic data, but due to the heterogeneous distribution of such data the quality varies over the world. Nevertheless, with the advent of satellite gravity missions, it is today possible to recover the Moho constituents (i.e. Moho depth; MD and Moho density contrast; MDC) via gravity observations based on isostatic models. Prior to using gravity observations for this application it must be stripped due to the gravitational contributions of known anomalous crustal density structures, mainly density variations of oceans, glacial ice sheets and sediment basins (i.e. stripping gravity corrections). In addition, the gravity signals related mainly with masses below the crust must also be removed. The main purpose of this study is to estimate the significance of removing also remaining non-isostatic effects (RNIEs) on gravity, that is, gravity effects that remain after the stripping corrections. This is carried out by using CRUST19 seismic crustal model and employing Vening Meinesz–Moritz (VMM) gravimetric-isostatic model in recovering the Moho constituents on a global scale to a resolution of 1° × 1°. To reach this goal, we present a new model, named MHUU22, formed by the SGGUGM2 gravitational field, Earth2014 topography, CRUST1.0 and CRUST19 seismic crustal models. Particularly, this study has its main emphasis on the RNIEs on gravity and Moho constituents to find out if we can modify the stripping gravity corrections by a specific correction of the RNIEs. The numerical results illustrate that the RMS differences between MHUU22 MD and the seismic model CRUST1.0 and least-squares combined model MOHV21 are reduced by 33 and 41 per cent by applying the NIEs, and the RMS differences between MHUU22 MDC and the seismic model CRUST1.0 and least-squares combined model MDC21 are reduced by 41 and 23 per cent when the above strategy for removing the RNIEs is applied. Hence, our study demonstrates that the specific correction for the RNIEs on gravity disturbance is significant, resulting in remarkable improvements in MHUU22, which more clearly visualize several crustal structures.