Age-dependent seismic thickness and mechanical strength of the Australian lithosphere

[1] We present constraints on the regional variations of the seismic and mechanical thickness of the Australian lithosphere. We infer the seismic thickness from a waveform tomographic model of S-wave speed, and as a proxy for the elastic thickness we use the wavelength at which the coherence of surface topography and Bouguer gravity drops below half of its long-wavelength maximum. Our results show that on scales <1000 km the relationship between the age of the crust and the thickness of the lithosphere is more complicated than longer-wavelength or global averages suggest. Recent geochemical and geodynamical evidence for small-scale secular variations of the composition and stability of continental cratons further illustrates the complexity of the age dependence of seismo-mechanical lithospheric properties on regional scales.