Construct · 1 fields · 3 citations

isostasy: a standalone construct

One name. One construct. A landmark on the map.

● anchor · a standalone construct Nearest construct by meaningmantlecompare the meanings
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isostasy1 CONSTRUCTIsostasyDUTTON · CRUST FLOATS

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Geophysics

Buoyant equilibrium in which Earth's crust floats on the denser mantle

The geologist Clarence Dutton coined the term isostasy in 1889 to name the principle that Earth's outer rocky shell rests in buoyant equilibrium, floating on the denser, slowly deforming mantle beneath it much as a block of wood floats on water, so that ground standing high is underlain by lighter or thicker material that displaces the mantle below. Two mechanical models proposed earlier, in the same 1855 volume of the Philosophical Transactions, still frame the idea: George Airy explained the gravitational pull of mountain masses by supposing a crust of nearly uniform density with deep roots reaching down beneath high ground, while John Henry Pratt supposed a crust of uniform depth whose density varies, being lighter under mountains and heavier under lowlands. In both accounts the total mass in any vertical column down to a common depth of compensation is equal, which is the condition of isostatic balance. Isostasy accounts for the thick crustal roots beneath mountain belts, for the slow rise of land as the weight of melted glaciers is removed (isostatic rebound), and for the way the measured gravity field departs from what surface topography alone would predict, and it remains the standard framework relating crustal thickness, density, and surface elevation.[1][2][3]

Unit
A state of gravitational equilibrium between the crust and the underlying mantle, tracked through crustal thickness, density, and surface elevation
Recovery means
Not applicable
Measured by
Inferred from gravity anomalies (free-air and Bouguer), seismic estimates of crustal thickness, and models that fix a depth of compensation at which pressure is equalised

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Nearby constructs

buoyancy4 fields · 4 citationsjingle · one word, four constructs

References

  1. Dutton, C. E. (1889). On some of the greater problems of physical geology. Bulletin of the Philosophical Society of Washington, 11, 51–64.
  2. Airy, G. B. (1855). On the computation of the effect of the attraction of mountain-masses, as disturbing the apparent astronomical latitude of stations in geodetic surveys. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 145, 101–104. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstl.1855.0003
  3. Pratt, J. H. (1855). On the attraction of the Himalaya Mountains, and of the elevated regions beyond them, upon the plumb-line in India. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 145, 53–100. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstl.1855.0002

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