Structural geology articles within Nature

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    A ground-penetrating radar survey of Martian subsurface structure in a southern marginal area of Utopia Planitia constructed a detailed subsurface image profile showing a roughly 70-m-thick, multi-layered structure below regolith.

    • Chao Li
    • , Yikang Zheng
    •  & Fuyuan Wu

  • Article |

    A record of Earth’s magnetic field constructed from near-bottom magnetization observations and oriented samples provides three-dimensional imaging of magnetic stripes in fast-spread crust, and suggests slow cooling off-axis, as opposed to deep hydrothermal cooling close to the spreading ridge.

    • Sarah M. Maher
    • , Jeffrey S. Gee
    •  & Barbara E. John

  • Letter |

    The volatile-ice-filled basin informally named Sputnik Planum is central to Pluto’s geological activity; this ice layer is organized into cells or polygons, and it is now shown that convective overturn in a several-kilometre-thick layer of solid nitrogen can explain both the presence of the cells and their great width.

    • William B. McKinnon
    • , Francis Nimmo
    •  & K. E. Smith

  • Letter |

    The ‘onion-like’ stratification of the two lobes of the comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko reveals that its unusual shape is the result of a gentle collision merging two kilometre-sized objects in the early stages of the Solar System.

    • Matteo Massironi
    • , Emanuele Simioni
    •  & Jean-Baptiste Vincent

  • Letter |

    Measurements of the viscous anisotropy of highly deformed polycrystalline olivine find it to be approximately an order of magnitude larger than that predicted by grain-scale simulations; the maximum degree of anisotropy is reached at geologically low shear strain, such that deforming regions of the Earth’s upper mantle should exhibit significant viscous anisotropy.

    • L. N. Hansen
    • , M. E. Zimmerman
    •  & D. L. Kohlstedt

  • Letter |

    Models and field measurements together show that the branching patterns of fine-scale river networks are the result of coupled instabilities in the erosional processes that drive valley incision.

    • J. Taylor Perron
    • , Paul W. Richardson
    •  & Mathieu Lapôtre

  • Letter |

    This study uses seismic receiver functions, gravity and surface heat flow measurements to estimate the thickness and seismic velocity ratio, vP/vS, of the continental crust in the western United States. There is a surprising correlation between low crustal vP/vS ratios and both higher lithospheric temperature and Cordilleran deformation. From this it is inferred that the abundance of crustal quartz — the weakest mineral in continental rocks — may lead to a feedback mechanism that strongly influences continental temperature and deformation.

    • Anthony R. Lowry
    •  & Marta Pérez-Gussinyé

  • Letter |

    Here, the seismic anisotropy of the Earth's lowermost mantle between North and Central America has been measured, using shallow and deep earthquakes to increase the azimuthal coverage. The findings show that the previously assumed vertical transverse isotropy — where wave speed should show no azimuthal variation — is not possible, and that more complicated mechanisms must be involved.

    • Andy Nowacki
    • , James Wookey
    •  & J-Michael Kendall

  • Letter |

    Here a method of seismic wave imaging known as 'ambient noise' tomography is used to generate high-resolution images of seismic wave speeds in the crust and uppermost mantle. The observations reveal strong and uniform anisotropy — where waves travel through rock at different speeds depending on direction — in the deep crust in areas of the western United States that have undergone significant extension during the past 65 million years.

    • M. P. Moschetti
    • , M. H. Ritzwoller
    •  & Y. Yang

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