Dong, XingpengYang, DinghuiNiu, FenglinLiu, ShaolinTong, Ping2021-07-082021-07-082021Dong, Xingpeng, Yang, Dinghui, Niu, Fenglin, et al.. "Adjoint traveltime tomography unravels a scenario of horizontal mantle flow beneath the North China craton." <i>Scientific Reports,</i> 11, (2021) Springer Nature: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-92048-8.https://hdl.handle.net/1911/111007The North China craton (NCC) was dominated by tectonic extension from late Cretaceous to Cenozoic, yet seismic studies on the relationship between crust extension and lithospheric mantle deformation are scarce. Here we present a three dimensional radially anisotropic model of NCC derived from adjoint traveltime tomography to address this issue. We find a prominent low S-wave velocity anomaly at lithospheric mantle depths beneath the Taihang Mountains, which extends eastward with a gradually decreasing amplitude. The horizontally elongated low-velocity anomaly is also featured by a distinctive positive radial anisotropy (VSH > VSV). Combining geodetic and other seismic measurements, we speculate the presence of a horizontal mantle flow beneath central and eastern NCC, which led to the extension of the overlying crust. We suggest that the rollback of Western Pacific slab likely played a pivotal role in generating the horizontal mantle flow at lithospheric depth beneath the central and eastern NCC.engThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.Journal articles41598-021-92048-8https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-92048-8