We use a thin viscous sheet model to interpret the observed shortening along a seismic reflection profile collected on the Phedre cruise (on the deforming oceanic lithosphere in the central Indian Ocean). We determine the 95% confidence region of the 1/e fall-off distance of strain rate to be between 7.1° and 20.4°, the vertically averaged power-law exponent to be between 1.6 and 18.5, and the ratio of the strength of the upper lithosphere to the lower lithosphere to be between 1 and 5.5. We calculate a simplified strength envelope of a two layered oceanic lithosphere based on the lower lithosphere deforming in accordance with the Dorn equation. This model estimates a range of between 0.2 and 20 TN m-1 for the strength of the oceanic lithosphere. The ratio of the strength of the upper lithosphere with respect to the lower lithosphere ranges between 8.6 and 13.98.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:RICE/oai:scholarship.rice.edu:1911/17900 |
| Date | January 2006 |
| Creators | Mutnuri, Kartik |
| Contributors | Gordon, Richard G. |
| Source Sets | Rice University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Text |
| Format | 86 p., application/pdf |
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