Anisotropic gradients in the upper mantle

Pn amplitudes in some widely spaced sets of orthogonal marine refraction lines on young oceanic crust are greater in the fast direction than in the slow direction. This is inconsistent with the predicted amplitude behavior for simple head waves, but can be explained by an increase in anisotropy with depth. It appears that these gradients are due to increasing olivine crystal orientation, although changes in the relative abundance of two anisotropic minerals without variable tectonization could also account for the observations. Depth variation of tectonization most probably indicates very high temperature gradients at the Moho. This would imply a substantial amount of convective heat transport in the whole oceanic crust near mid‐ocean rises.