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| | Marginal Stability of Thick Continental Lithosphere (Site not responding. Last check: ) |
 | | The alteration of ancient lithosphere within plate interiors, independent of spatial proximity to continental margins, suggests that lithosphere may not be perfectly stable. |
 | | We argue that subcontinental mantle lithosphere, not just on its margins, but also within its interior, has persisted in a thermal and mechanical state near the threshold of stability, such that the local Rayleigh number for the lithosphere is close to a critical value, $Ra_c$. |
 | | Applied to continental lithosphere in a thermal and mechanical state near the instability threshold, this relationship implies that the lithospheric thickness \emph{must} decrease as the mean density of the lithospheric mantle increases, consistent with the geological record. |
| www.ldeo.columbia.edu /~liz/MargStabAbs.html (423 words) |
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