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Investigating Mantle Flow Through Analyses of Earthquake Wave Propagation

Earth and Planetary Sciences researchers at Yale use Yale’s "Grace" supercomputer to study subduction systems, combining seismic data and geodynamic models to better understand how subduction works.

A recent study by Jonathan Wolf and Maureen Long uses earthquake waves and high-performance computing to analyze material flow deep in Earth's mantle, near the outer core boundary, around 3,000 km below the surface. Researchers found ancient slabs drive flow beneath the northeastern Pacific and detected upward flow at the Yellowstone plume. They also discovered that mysterious mantle features called ultralow velocity zones (ULVZs) can be moved by mantle flow, especially under the Himalayas. These findings link deep mantle dynamics to surface events like plate tectonics, volcanism, and Earth's magnetic field.

Maureen Long and Jonathan Wolf
Maureen Long : Bruce D. Alexander '65 Professor and Chair of Earth & Planetary Sciences

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The US ATLAS Northeast Tier 2 Center
Yale Budget Lab
Volcanic Eruptions Impact on Stratospheric Chemistry & Ozone
Towards a Whole Brain Cellular Atlas
Tornado Path Detection
The Kempner Institute - Unlocking Intelligence
The Institute for Experiential AI
Taming the Energy Appetite of AI Models
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