Geoid anomalies in a dynamic earth

Abstract

Potential and surface deformation Love numbers for internal loading have been calculated in order to obtain a dynamically consistent relationship between the geoid and the earth's response to internal buoyancy forces. These quantities depend on the depth and harmonic degree of loading, and can be integrated as Green functions to obtain the dynamic response due to an arbitrary distribution of internal density contrasts. Constructing a series of spherically symmetric, self-gravitating flow models for a variety of radial Newtonian viscosity variations and flow configurations, and calculating relaxation times for spherically symmetric viscous earth models, it is demonstrated that boundary deformation due to internal loading reaches its equilibrium value on the same time scale as postglacial rebound; this is much less time than the time scale for significant change in the convective flow pattern.