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Topography of the core–mantle boundary and lateral homogeneity of the liquid core

Abstract

Separate inversions of travel-time residuals of waves reflected from and transmitted through the core-mantle boundary yield similar results in terms of spherical harmonic expansion of its topography up to degree and order 4. This indicates absence of detectable lateral heterogeneity in the liquid core. The relief of the boundary is ±6km but its flattening, determined by the c02 term, does not depart significantly from the hydrostatic theory.

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Morelli, A., Dziewonski, A. Topography of the core–mantle boundary and lateral homogeneity of the liquid core. Nature 325, 678–683 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1038/325678a0

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