9526911 Sheehan This research and teaching grant is to study seismic estimates of sharpness and depth distribution of mantle discontinuities which are important for constraining models of composition and temperature in the Earth. Seismic data for oceanic regions have been sparse to address this problem but new stations coming online or planned will help to fill this gap. The work will include assembly of data sets from permanent island stations, temporary island stations, and temporary ocean bottom seismic deployments and application of multiple techniques for determining the sharpness and lateral variation of crust and upper mantle discontinuities. The undergraduate teaching efforts will bring Internet and multimedia resources into the classroom, and bring development of a new geophysical field course utilizing resources from a previously funded NSF instrumentation grant. This grant is a component of the NSF CAREER program.
