Forebulge
In geology, a forebulge is a flexural bulge in front of a load on the lithosphere. This load causes the lithosphere to flex by depressing the plate beneath it. Because of the flexural rigidity of the lithosphere, the area around the load is uplifted by a height that is 4% of that of the depression under the load. This load and resulting flexure place stress on the mantle, causing it to flow into the area around the loaded area. The subsidence of the area under the load and the uplift of the forebulge continue until the load is in isostatic equilibrium, a process which takes on the order of ten to twenty thousand years. Because of the coupling with the mantle, the rate of forebulge formation and collapse is controlled by mantle viscosity.
Contents
Glacial
One cause for forebulge formation is loading of the continental lithosphere by ice sheets during continental glaciations. Because of the removal of the ice sheets, these formerly-glaciated areas are currently rising in a phenomenon known as post-glacial rebound. Because of the coupling of the mantle with the plates, data from post-glacial rebound are used as a direct probe of the viscosity of the upper mantle. As the ice melts and the land under it rises by isostatic recovery, the forebulge also subsides. Forebulge subsidence is the reason why the Netherlands and parts of southern England have been slowly sinking in the present day.[1]
One estimate [2] is that the centre of the North Sea rose by about 170m (558 feet) during the Ice Age because of forebulging.[clarification needed]
Tectonic
Collisions between tectonic plates and island arcs lead to loading and flexure of the lithosphere. This flexure produces a significant forebulge that divides a forearc basin and a back arc basin.
Physics
The existence of a forebulge is predicted by the solution to the equations for the flexure of a thin elastic beam or plate (i.e., the lithosphere). The magnitude of the flexure goes as an exponentially decaying sinusoid. The lithosphere is therefore anomalously high at a flexural half-wavelength past the load; this flexural wavelength is determined in large part by the elastic thickness of the lithosphere.
References
- ↑ p54 in Doggerland: a Speculative Survey, by B.J.Coles, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, #64 1998 pp 45-81.
- ↑ Glacial deposits of Britain and Europe: general overview, by D.Ehlers, P.Gibbard, & Tj.C.E van Weering, 1979: in Glacial Deposits in Britain and Ireland, edited by J.Ehlers, P.Gibbard, & J.Rose, pp 493-501, Rotterdam: Balkema.
- Deglaciation, Earth crustal behaviour and sea level changes in the determination of insularity: a perspective from Ireland, by R.J.N.Devoy: in Island Britain: A Quaternary Perspective, edited by R.C.Preece, pp 181–208, London: Geological Society Special Publication 96.
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