Hemispheric Dichotomy of Mantle Dynamics Revealed by Machine Learning

TL;DR

This paper uses machine learning to better estimate Earth's mantle contribution to topography, revealing hemispheric differences in mantle dynamics and challenging previous assumptions about mantle forces.

Contribution

Introduces a novel machine learning approach to estimate mantle-related topography using surface and crustal data, reducing reliance on empirical models.

Findings

Residual topography amplitudes are smaller than previous estimates.

Hemispheric contrast in mantle dynamics is indicated by a prominent degree-one topographic component.

Mantle convection is more vigorous beneath the Atlantic than the Pacific.

Abstract

Past efforts to interrogate the mantle's contribution to Earth's topography suffer from inadequate in-situ measurements of true bathymetry and the involvement of an empirical plate model whose presumed lithospheric density profile interferes with the interpretation of other mantle forces. Here, we introduce a machine learning algorithm that estimates the oceanic residual topography based solely on surface and crustal attributes, providing a more objective proxy for the topographic contribution from the mantle. Ablation studies show that seafloor age is the most important factor, while other properties help further improve the fit to bathymetry. The resulting residual topography has notably smaller amplitudes than previous estimates, indicating that more surface features can be explained by crustal properties than previously thought. This exercise, designed to allow detection of long-wavelength signals, uncovers a more prominent degree-one topographic component than the degree-two pattern, both with much smaller amplitudes than previously thought. We suggest that this result reflects a hemispheric contrast in mantle dynamics, especially the two large low shear-wave velocity provinces (LLSVPs). This inference is further strengthened by quantifying the respective topographic contributions from lithospheric isostasy and dynamic topography. We conclude that mantle convection beneath the Atlantic is more vigorous than that beneath the Pacific, likely due to their different thermal-chemical states.