%0 Journal Article
%A Ruiz Pérez, Javier
%A Gómez Ortiz, David
%A Tejero López, Rosa
%T Effective elastic thicknesses of the lithosphere in the Central IberianPeninsula from heat flow: Implications for the rheology of thecontinental lithospheric mantle.
%D 2006
%@ 0264-3707
%U https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/49337
%X The traditional view of the rheology of the continental lithosphere, sometimes known as the “jelly sandwich model”, consists ofa strong upper crust, a weak lower crust, and a strong upper lithospheric mantle. Some authors argue, however, that the lithosphericmantle is weak and contributes little to the total strength and the effective elastic thickness of the lithosphere; this weakness isclaimed to be due to the mantle being wet or subjected to temperatures higher than usually believed. This paper uses the relationshipbetween rheology of the lithosphere and heat flow to calculate theoretical effective elastic thicknesses for three regions of the centralIberian Peninsula (the Duero Basin, the Spanish Central System and the Tajo Basin), taking into account the contribution of thecrust and the lithospheric mantle, for dry and wet rheologies. We found that a wet peridotite rheology for the lithospheric mantle isgenerally consistent with independent (based on Bouguer coherence or flexural modeling) estimates of the effective elastic thicknessfor the study area, whereas a dry peridotite rheology cannot be reconciled with them. Moreover, the contribution of the mantle tothe bending moment of the lithosphere, and therefore to both the effective elastic thickness and the total strength of the lithosphere,is important, and it may even be the dominant contribution. Therefore, the jelly sandwich model may be considered valid for thecentral Iberian Peninsula.
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