Variations of heat flow and Pn - velocity in the continental area of China

Temperature is an important factor affecting seismic velocity, and terrestrial heat flow is the most direct indication of temperature distribution of the lithosphere. Some authors therefore suggested that Pn velocity should be inversely related with heat flow. The average heat flow values (q) and Pn velocities (V _Pn) in 22 areas have been calculated and collected from published literatures to investigate the possible correlation between these two parameters for the continental area of China. However, the results show that the variations ofq andV _Pn in the studied areas are far away from the expected inverse relation. The effects of pressure of seismic velocity and contribution of crustal radiogenic heat on heat flow have been taken into consideration in regressions respectively and simultaneously. However, all the corrections are of little help for the improvement of the expected inverse relation. The conclusion deduced from the present study is that in a large scale region with complex tectonic evolution history and complex deep structure framework such as the continental area of China, temperature at the Moho boundary is not the most important factor affecting Pn velocity. The conceptual inverse correlation between heat flow and Pn velocity might be masked by various “noises”. The Chinese version of this paper appeared in the Chinese edition ofActa Seismologica Sinica,14, 42–50, 1992.