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Depth to Lithosphere-Asthenosphere Boundary GeoTIFF grids for the United States, Canada, and Australia

Published by U.S. Geological Survey | Department of the Interior | Metadata Last Checked: January 27, 2026 | Last Modified: 2025-03-31T00:00:00Z
The lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary (LAB), calculated from calibrated surface wave tomography models, is marked by an abrupt change in seismic velocity between the earth's cooler lithosphere (higher seismic velocities) and the warmer and more ductile asthenosphere (lower seismic velocities). GeoTIFF grids that were extracted from global compilations (Hoggard and others, 2020) that map depth to the LAB for the United States and Canada, and for Australia are provided in this report. Previous studies have identified locations of sediment-hosted Pb-Zn deposits occur along a gradient in the depth of the lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary. The LAB gradient is interpreted to represent a change from thicker to thinner lithosphere which has localized the development of basins prospective for Pb-Zn mineralization (Hoggard and others, 2020). The GeoTIFF grids were used as evidential layers in developing prospectivity models for basin-hosted Pb-Zn mineralization (Lawley and others, 2022). References Hoggard, M.J., Czarnota, K., Richards, F.D., Huston, D.L., Jaques, A.L., and Ghelichkhan, S., 2020, Global distribution of sediment–hosted metals controlled by craton edge stability: Nature Geoscience, v. 13, no. 7, p. 504-510, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-020-0593-2. Lawley, C.J.M., McCafferty, A.E, Graham, G.E., Huston, D.L., Kelley, K.D., Czarnota, K., Paradis, S., Peter, J.M., Hayward, N., Barlow, M., Emsbo, P., Coyan, J., San Juan, C.A., and Gadd, M.G., 2022, Data-driven prospectivity modelling of sediment-hosted Zn-Pb mineral systems and their critical raw materials: Ore Geology Reviews, v. 141, no. 104635, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oregeorev.2021.104635.

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