Imaging the deep seismic structure beneath a mid-ocean ridge: the MELT experiment

The Mantle Electromagnetic and Tomography (MELT) Experiment was designed to distinguish between competing models of magma generation beneath mid-ocean ridges. Seismological observations demonstrate that basaltic melt is present beneath the East Pacific Rise spreading center in a broad region several hundred kilometers across and extending to depths greater than 100 kilometers, not just in a narrow region of high melt concentration beneath the spreading center, as predicted by some models. The structure of the ridge system is strongly asymmetric: mantle densities and seismic velocities are lower and seismic anisotropy is stronger to the west of the rise axis.