P. Wessel et al., THE POSSIBLE REFLECTION OF MANTLE DISCONTINUITIES IN PACIFIC GEOID AND BATHYMETRY, Geophysical research letters, 21(18), 1994, pp. 1943-1946
Geoid anomalies over the Pacific plate show lineated undulations appro
ximately oriented in the direction of absolute plate motion. Conventio
nal spectral analyses have revealed a broad range of dominant waveleng
ths, but as filtering is direction-dependent, results are difficult to
interpret. Here, we present a new approach designed to quantify the c
orrelation between the geoid undulations and Pacific plate motion. We
calculate the spatial correlation between geoid lineations and arbitra
rily oriented, axisymmetric sinusoidal undulations of given wavelength
. The pole (i.e., the orientation) of the sinusoid which maximizes the
correlation is determined. The distance between this pole and the Pac
ific hotspot pole is calculated and represents a measure of how well a
geoid lineation of a given wavelength aligns with Pacific plate motio
n. This distance varies with undulation wavelength and has discrete mi
nima for several wavebands. These minima, moreover, occur at wavelengt
hs whose values are remarkably close to the depths of seismically infe
rred mantle discontinuities. A similar analysis of available bathymetr
y corroborates these findings. If these correlations are significant,
they suggest that geoid (and bathymetry) undulations are influenced by
mantle structure and thus are likely to reflect mantle dynamics.