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Tectonics

Draining Nevada

The lack of strong splitting of seismic shear waves below central Nevada is in marked contrast to the surrounding region. Seismic data and numerical experiments suggest that a skinny, cylindrical drip of lithosphere may be to blame.

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Figure 1: Mantle flow and shear-wave splitting.

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Schulte-Pelkum, V. Draining Nevada. Nature Geosci 2, 381–382 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo532

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