Construct · 1 fields · 3 citations

Mohorovičić discontinuity: a standalone construct

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

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Mohorovičićdiscontinuity1 CONSTRUCTMoho discontinuityMOHOROVICIC · MOHO

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Seismology and geophysics

The seismic boundary between Earth's crust and mantle

The Croatian seismologist Andrija Mohorovičić identified this boundary in 1910 while analysing seismograms of the 8 October 1909 earthquake near Zagreb, when he noticed two separate sets of arriving P-waves and inferred a sharp interface at which seismic waves speed up and bend. The Mohorovičić discontinuity, or Moho, is the base of the crust and the top of the mantle, the depth at which the velocity of compressional (P) waves jumps abruptly, from roughly 6 to 7 km/s in the crust to about 8 km/s in the mantle below, a change attributed to a shift in rock composition toward the denser peridotite of the mantle. It lies on average near 35 km beneath the continents, deepening under mountain ranges, and only about 7 km beneath the ocean floor. As the first internal boundary of the solid Earth to be found from seismic waves, it remains the standard definition of where crust ends and mantle begins, and its depth is one of the primary measurements used to map crustal thickness worldwide.[1][2][3]

Unit
A subsurface seismic boundary defined by an abrupt increase in P-wave velocity, marking the base of the crust
Recovery means
Not applicable
Measured by
Located by seismic refraction and reflection surveys and by receiver-function analysis, as the depth where P-wave velocity rises from crustal (about 6 to 7 km/s) to mantle (about 8 km/s) values

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Nearby constructs

refraction4 fields · 4 citationsjingle · one word, four kinds of bending

References

  1. Mohorovičić, A. (1910). Das Beben vom 8. X. 1909 [The earthquake of 8 October 1909]. Jahrbuch des Meteorologischen Observatoriums in Zagreb für das Jahr 1909, 9(4), 1–63.
  2. Jarchow, C. M., & Thompson, G. A. (1989). The nature of the Mohorovicic discontinuity. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 17(1), 475–506. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ea.17.050189.002355
  3. Christensen, N. I., & Mooney, W. D. (1995). Seismic velocity structure and composition of the continental crust: A global view. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 100(B6), 9761–9788. https://doi.org/10.1029/95JB00259

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