High‐resolution receiver function imaging reveals Colorado Plateau lithospheric architecture and mantle‐supported topography
Abstract
After maintaining elevations near sea level for over 500 million years, the Colorado Plateau (CP) has a present average elevation of 2 km. We compute new receiver function images from the first dense seismic transect to cross the plateau that reveal a central CP crustal thickness of 42–50 km thinning to 30–35 km at the CP margins. Isostatic calculations show that only approximately 20% of central CP elevations can be explained by thickened crust alone, with the CP edges requiring nearly total mantle compensation. We calculate an uplift budget showing that CP buoyancy arises from a combination of crustal thickening, heating and alteration of the lithospheric root, dynamic support from mantle upwelling, and significant buoyant edge effects produced by small‐scale convecting asthenosphere at its margins.
Local Knowledge Graph (5 entities)
Related Works
Items connected by shared entities, co-authorship, citations, or semantic similarity.
Mantle structure beneath the western edge of the Colorado Plateau
Mantle convection and the recent evolution of the Colorado Plateau and the Rio Grande Rift valley
Upper mantle shear structure beneath the Colorado Rocky Mountains
Re: Taylor Park Loop Project (Forest Service, Pam Bode)
From Mesas and Mountains to Rocks and Rivers: A Quick Overview of the Geologic History of the Gunnison Basin
Late Paleozoic and Early Mesozoic Structural History of the Uncompahgre Front- 19600101
Colorado Geologic Highway Map
Styled hillshade basemap for the Upper Gunnison domain
Digital subsurface data of Paleozoic rocks in the Upper Colorado River Basin in Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico from USGS Regional Aquifer System Analysis
Cited 18 times
References (30)
30 references to works outside the Knowledge Hub