Computers & Geosciences 44 (2012) 177–183

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Computers & Geosciences

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cageo

MohoIso: A MATLAB program to determine crustal thickness by an isostatic

and a global gravitational model
Mohammad Bagherbandi
Division of Geodesy and Geoinformatics, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), 10044 Stockholm, Sweden

a r t i c l e i n f o abstract

Article history: This paper focuses on the modeling of the boundary between Earth’s crust and upper mantle using a
Received 25 May 2011 gravimetric–isostatic model. Here a MATLAB code is presented based on the gravimetric–isostatic
Received in revised form model i.e. the Vening Meinesz–Moritz model. Inverse problems in isostasy consist in making the
4 October 2011
isostatic anomalies to be zero under a certain isostatic hypothesis. The Vening Meinesz–Moritz problem
Accepted 4 October 2011
Available online 25 October 2011
is to determine the Moho depth such that the compensating attraction totally compensates the Bouguer
gravity anomaly on the Earth’s surface, implying that the isostatic anomaly vanishes on the Earth’s
Keywords: surface. The main idea is easy but the theoretical analysis is somewhat difficult. Here a practical
Inversion method method to recover the Moho depth from the gravity data is used in the MATLAB code (MohoIso.m) based
Isostasy
on the Vening Meinesz–Moritz method. The code has been designed based on different sub-codes.
MATLAB
The body of the main code works according to the vectorization technique, because this technique causes
Moho depth
Mohorovičič discontinuity that the speed of code increases. One of the important possible limitations for the code is over-flow and
Vening Meinesz–Moritz hypothesis under-flow for higher degrees in the fully normalized associated Legendre function. This problem occurs
in the subroutine applied in this study, it limits the numerical study up to degrees 1800–2000.
& 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction An alternative algorithm to estimate the Moho depth was

Determination of the Mohorovičič discontinuity (Moho),
which is the surface separating the crust from the mantle, is a
classical problem in geophysics. Some geophysical parameters
vary at this surface, such as density contrast, gravity field, velocity
of seismic waves, etc. The Moho depth can be determined by the
seismic or the gravimetric methods. The gravimetric methods are
based on assumptions on isostatic equilibrium theories, like
varying compensation depth or density contrast or both in the
ideal case. For example, Vening Meinesz modified the Airy–
Heiskanen hypothesis (Heiskanen and Moritz, 1967, p. 135) by
considering regional/global compensation instead of local com-
pensation. In the Vening Meinesz isostatic hypothesis, the density
contrast is constant, while the Moho depth is variable. In the
Vening Meinesz model the Bouguer gravity anomaly on the
Earth’s surface is totally compensated by the mass attraction
beneath it. Moritz (1990, Chapter 8) generalized istotatic model to
a spherically shaped sea level. The problem of determination of
the Moho depth can be formulated mathematically by solving a
non-linear Fredholm integral equation of the first kind. This
method was recently presented by Sjöberg (2009) and called
Vening Meinesz–Moritz (VMM).
E-mail address: mohbag@kth.se
presented by Parker’s (1972), which was based on the relation
between the vertical gravity effect and its causative topographic
mass in the Fourier domain. The Parker model was constructed
based on variable Moho depth and the constant density contrast.
In addition, a method based on loading theory can be employed
for determining crustal thickness (cf. Sun and Sjöberg, 1999).
This model is close to the Vening Meinesz model from the
conceptual point of view. Oldenburg (1974) deduced a method
to compute the density contrast of crust and mantle from the
gravity anomaly in a Cartesian coordinate system using Parker’s
method. He defined a method to stabilize the inversion in Parker’s
method. The Parker-Oldenburg method used by Gomez Oritz and
Agarwal (2005) and Shin et al. (2006) to estimate the Moho depth
in Brittany (France) and Ulleung Basin (South of Korea), respec-
tively, based on Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) technique. Shin et al.
(2007) studied the Moho undulations beneath Tibet from the
GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, Tapley et al.,
2005) gravity data based on the Parker–Oldenburg method.
For this purpose Gomez Oritz and Agarwal (2005) and Shin
et al. (2006) presented MATALB (3DINVER.m) and FORTRAN
(FW3DFFT.f) codes to determine the Moho depth, respectively.
The main applications of the Moho models can be mentioned
in studying dynamic isostatic effects (see Bagherbandi, 2011,
Chapter 2) such as mantle convection/heat flow, post-glacial
rebound and other long-wavelength geodynamic effects.

0098-3004/$ - see front matter & 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.cageo.2011.10.012
178 M. Bagherbandi / Computers & Geosciences 44 (2012) 177–183

The crustal thickness can be used for smoothing the gravity field attraction is a function of the Moho depth as well as the position
in downward continuation of the satellite data such as GOCE of point P. We know that the compensating potentials cannot
(Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer) to compensate all topographic potential (Heiskanen and Vening
recover the gravity anomaly. In this method the topographic– Meinesz, 1958 p. 124). In fact, there is incomplete compensation
isostatic potential can be determined by the Moho depth model somewhere in the Earth. Therefore there is no warranty that
then their effect will removed from the satellite data for smooth- Eq. (1) will be equal zero. This issue is related to the dynamic
ing the satellite data (Eshagh and Bagherbandi, 2011). This is isostatic effects (e.g. plate tectonic, post-glacial rebound, thermal
one geodetic example for the Moho depth. It is also seen that compensation, etc; see Bagherbandi, 2011, Chapter 2 for more
the Moho depth model can be applied for determination of details).
the Moho density contrast (Sjöberg and Bagherbandi, 2011). A general scheme has been presented in Fig. 1 for formulating
The crustal thickness estimated by the VMM model can be the VMM Moho depth. Compensation attraction in Eq. (1) can be
applied to construct a synthetic Earth gravity model (SEGM), by given by Newtonian’s integral:
the topographic–isostatic coefficients (Pavlis and Rapp, 1990; ZZ Z RT 0 2
r ðrr P tÞ
Haagmans, 2000). The main motivation to use the topographic– AC ðPÞ ¼ GDr 3
dr ds ð2Þ
isostatic harmonic coefficients in creating the SEGM, is the large RT lP
s
correlation of power spectra of the topographic–isostatic and
where G is the Newtonian gravitational constant, r and rP are
Earth gravitational models such as EGM08 (Pavlis et al., 2008). qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
To achieve the SEGM, an existing global geopotential model can r 2P þ r 2 2rr P t .
geocentric distances, s is the unit sphere and lP ¼
be used to describe the low degrees, whereas the medium and Here t ¼ cos c, where c is the geocentric angle between the
high degrees are obtained from a global topographic-isostatically computation and integration points. Hence, if the real and the
induced potential (Haagmans, 2000). mean Moho depths are in disagreement, then an apparent density
To recover the Moho depth using the gravity anomaly, we anomaly Dr occurs within a depth interval between T0 and T
need more realistic model than the traditional isostatic models. (Moritz, 1990). Dr is Moho density contrast (MDC), which is due to
The VMM model because of the global/regional assumption for the different structures of the Earth’s crust and mantle, there is a
computing the topographic potential is close to reality. Some contrast between their densities at the Moho boundary. T0 is
comparisons between different Moho models are performed by normal Moho depth (cf. Sjöberg and Bagherbandi, 2011, appendix).
Bagherbandi and Sjöberg (2011a). In this study, we use EGM08 to Here we are going to present Sjöberg’s practical method to
determine the Moho depth, because of the lack of the gravity data. recover the Moho depth by the VMM model. Sjöberg (2009)
Presenting a MATLAB code based on the VMM model and using solved Eq. (1) analytically and finally he presented the following
global geopotential and digital topography models is the goal of formula for the approximate Moho depth:
this study. The main code (MohoIso.m) use the vectorization
1   X
technique (Eshagh, 2009), the advantage of this method is the 1 X 1 n
T 1 ðPÞ  2 f Y nm ðPÞ ð3Þ
fast calculation time. Some subroutines have been written based 4p n ¼ 0 n þ 1 m ¼ n nm
on the vectorization technique. Section 2 describes the back-
where
ground of the VMM model, briefly. Description of the MATLAB
(
code and its subroutines are presented in Section 3. ½B00 AC 0 =ð4pGDrÞ if n ¼ 0
f nm ¼ ð4aÞ
½Binm Gnm =ð4 pGDrÞ otherwise i ¼ s,c
2. Sjöberg’s direct solution for the crustal thickness Ynm(Q) is the fully normalized spherical harmonic of degree n and
order m, i.e.
In general, recovery of the crustal thickness from gravity (
cos ml if m Z0
anomaly is an ill-posed problem. The main problem in this type Y nm ðPÞ ¼ Pnm ðcos yÞ ð4bÞ
of problems is using the discrete data instead of the continuous sin9m9l otherwise
data. Therefore, stability of the solution and suitable resolution of
Pnm ðcos yÞ is fully normalized associated Legendre function.
the data are the main challenge in the inverse problem. Hence,
The coefficient fnm of Eq. (4a) is obtained by subtracting the
one can use a regularization method (Hansen, 1998, 2008) to
free-air gravity anomaly (Gnm) from the spectral Bouguer reduc-
determine the crustal thickness, which is an iterative method. We
tion term Binm (special care must be taken for the 01 term). The
know that the convergence of the solution is important in the
functions Binm in Eq. (4a) can be obtained based on harmonics of
iterative methods. Here, we use the method presented by Sjöberg
(2009), which is independent from the regularization method and
solid Earth topography
any iteration. This is the main advantage of the VMM model. In
fact, Sjöberg (2009) tried to solve this problem practically. This ρc
method is more practical than other methods such as Parker’s
method that we have to use some filter to regularize it (see
Oldenburg, 1974; Gomez Oritz and Agarwal, 2005). mean sea level
The Vening Meinesz–Moritz problem (Vening Meinesz, 1931; ρ
c
Moritz, 1990; Sjöberg, 2009; Bagherbandi, 2011; Bagherbandi and crustal thickness
Sjöberg, 2011b) is to determine the Moho depth T(P) such that the Real Moho surface
compensating attraction AC(P) totally compensates the Bouguer ρ Mean Moho
R-T m R
gravity anomaly DgB(P) on the Earth’s surface, implying that the
isostatic anomaly DgI(P) vanishes for point P on the Earth’s below crust layer
surface (Sjöberg, 2009):
Dg I ðPÞ ¼ Dg B ðPÞ þ AC ðPÞ ¼ 0 ð1Þ Earth
center
Eq. (1) is the fundamental equation for determining the crustal
thickness isostatically. It should be stated that the compensation Fig. 1. General schematic structure of the Earth’s crust.
 M. Bagherbandi / Computers & Geosciences 44 (2012) 177–183 179

the simple Bouguer correction Bsnm : the cap size c0 (Sjöberg, 2009):
Z 2p Z c0 2
Bsnm ¼ 2pGrc Hnm ð4cÞ 1 T ðQ ÞT 2 ðPÞ
Inearzone ¼ sin c dc da
and harmonic of the complete Bouguer correction Bcnm is given by 32pR a ¼ 0 c ¼ 0 sin3 ðc=2Þ
Z 2p Z D0 2
(Sjöberg, 1998) 1 T ðQ ÞT 2 ðPÞ
   dD da ð7aÞ
3 4p a ¼ 0 D ¼ 0 D2
Bcnm ¼ 2pG rHnm  ðrHÞnm ð4dÞ
2n þ 1 where D0 ¼Rc0 and a, D are the azimuth and the distance
where between the computation and integration points, respectively.
( One may expand the numerator of Eq. (7a) into a Taylor series at
rc H if H Z0 the computation point, yielding (Heiskanen and Moritz, 1967,
rH ¼ ð4eÞ
ðrw rc ÞH if H o0 p. 121)

Here rw and rc are the density of water and curst, respectively. D2

H stands for the topographic heights, ðrHÞnm and Gnm are the
harmonics of rH and the gravity anomaly, respectively. This
method is more practical for using an Earth Gravitational Model
(e.g. EGM08). In addition, the normal compensation attraction
AC0(P) can be obtained by (Sjöberg, 2009)
4pGDrR h i For this purpose, T1 can be assumed as initial value in this
A~ C 0 ðPÞ ¼ ðAC 0 ÞrP ¼ R ¼ ð1t0 Þ3 1  4pGDrT 0
3 equation and we can use least-squares adjustment to determine
Sjöberg (2009) showed that the regional undulations of the
Moho depth can be recovered by the following formula:
ZZ
T 2 ðPÞ 1 T 21 ðQ ÞT 21 ðPÞ
TðPÞ ¼ T 1 ðPÞ þ 1  ds ð6Þ
R 32pR s sin3 ðc=2Þ
Eq. (6) is a direct formula for computing the Moho depth from
the approximate Moho T1. As one can see, there is no need to use
regularization in the inversion of integral formulas in Sjöberg’s
direct solution. In fact, Sjöberg (2009) inverted the formulas
analytically. Eq. (6) has a strong singularity in the third term
when c approaches to zero (see Sjöberg, 2009). A cap size should
be considered in inner-most zone (c0) for the third term of
Eq. (6). This type of modeling the crustal thickness is direct and
straightforward without any iteration and the Moho depth can be
obtained at once.
Fig. 2 shows that the kernel, sin3 ðc=2Þ, used in Eq. (6) is well-
behaved and it decreases to zero very quickly around each
computation point. It means that this type of the kernel can
warranty the small truncation error in the integral equation. The
figure shows that the integration radius about 31 is enough to
have minimum truncation error.
2.1. Inner zone contribution
Eq. (6) has a strong singularity in third term of Eq. (6) when c
goes to zero. In order to remove this problem, one can determine
the near-zone contribution using a planar approximation within
T ¼ TðPÞ þ DðT x cos a þ T y sin aÞ þ
2
2
ðT xx cos2 a þ T xy sin 2a þ T yy sin aÞ ð7bÞ
where Tx, Ty, Txx, Txy and Txy are derivatives of T with respect to the
x- and y-axis. The unknowns Tx, Ty, Txx, Txy and Txy can be
determined by solving the system equation defined in Eq. (7b).
ð5Þ
the unknowns. We use planner approximation around each point
in the inner zone area. In fact T(P) in this equation is fix and we
need at least 5 observations (here they are the approximate Moho
depths T1 around point P) around the computation point to
estimate the unknowns.
Finally the inner zone contribution can be obtain by
D0 h i
Inear zone  T P ðT xx þ T yy Þ þ2ðT 2x þ T 2y Þ ð7cÞ
8
The cap size c0 can be obtained by comparing the area of
spherical (j,l) and polar (c,a) coordinate systems (cf.
Bagherbandi, 2011):
 
ðl l Þ9sin j2 sin j1 9
c0 ¼ cos1 1 þ 2 1 ð7dÞ
2p
3. Description of the MATLAB code to determine
the crustal thickness
The MohoIso.m code uses some MATLAB (R14) tools for
computing the crustal thickness based on the VMM isostatic
hypothesis. The code is designed to operate under MATLAB
version 7 and later developments. Using MATLAB toolboxes help
us to avoid from making some complicated subroutines. The other
advantage of using MATLAB toolboxes is using both text and
graphics outputs simultaneously.
The algorithm (MohoIso.m) allows the user to define the
boundary of the study area (deg.), resolution of the Moho depth
(deg.) and the MDC in land and ocean (kg/m3) through an input
file, which is INPUT.txt. The Moho depth estimates using an Earth
Gravitational Model (EGM), e.g. EGM08 (Pavlis et al., 2008).
In order to fill the input file please see README.txt for more details.
Generally, MohoIso.m function determines the Moho depth by
the following functions. In each the program there are texts,
which explained clearly the necessary input and output para-
meters and their formats.

3.1. Pnm function

The Pnm function computes fully normalized associated

Legendre functions for a selected order m. The inputs of this
function are degree n, order m and co-latitude (deg.) as a vector.
The output of this function is a matrix with Legendre functions.
Fig. 2. Kernel behavior for sin3 ðc=2Þ for rP ¼R and T0 ¼ 30 km. The matrix has a length equal to co-latitude rows and length
180 M. Bagherbandi / Computers & Geosciences 44 (2012) 177–183
columns. This function was published by N. Sneeuw in 1994. This
code works based on the vectorization technique (see also
Sneeuw, 2009).
The main problem to determine the fully normalized asso-
ciated Legendre functions is over- and under-flow for higher
degrees, which are occur for low and high latitudes (Holmes
and Featherstone, 2002). In fact, the current recursive techniques
for computing the associated Legendre functions to be fail. Fully
normalized associated Legendre functions Pnm that depending on
the latitude, this recursion will lead to under-flow after about
degrees 1800–2000, unless we take special measures. Thus
another algorithm should be applied when we use this function
for higher degrees than n¼ 1800. This issue was solved by Holmes
and Featherstone (2002) up to degree 5400 (to 7451 latitude)
and degree 2700 (over the whole Earth) using the Clenshaw
summation technique. The technique employed should be stable
for all latitude and for a certain degree and order (in this study
is 2700).
According to the Institute of Electrical and Electronic
Engineers’ (IEEE) standard 754 for binary floating-point arithmetic
only allocates eight bytes to store each double precision floating-
point number (R). Thus R may only take values within the range of
10310 r 9R9 r 10310
 310
Any computed value where 9R9r10 will under-flow and
be set to zero. Also for the case of 9R9Z10  310R will over-flow
and the result will be a not a number (NaN). Under-flow in the
computation of any Pnm excludes the corresponding coefficients.
3.2. Read functions
Here two functions for reading the global models are defined.
The functions need the name of the EGM and DTM to convert the
column wise geopotential and topographic height coefficients to
matrixwise whose rows and columns are related to the degree
and orders of the coefficients. Reading the EGM and the DTM
models is performed by ReadEGM.m and RreadDTM.m functions,
which are EGM08 (Pavlis et al., 2008) and DTM2006 (Pavlis et al.,
2007) spherical harmonic models up to degree and order 2160 in
this study. The functions storage the harmonic coefficients in
matrices. This technique help us to use the vectorization techni-
que (see Sneeuw, 2009; Eshagh, 2009). The main advantage of the
vectorization technique is fast calculation of the parameters and
decreasing the computational time. In fact, by selecting an
inappropriate algorithm can increase computation time.
RreadEGM.m
Input data
INPUT.txt
S N
W E
dϕ d λ
Δρ
c(1:nmax, m+1)
EGM
RreadDTM.m
DTM c H(1:nmax, m+1)
Eq. (5)
CRUST2.0
Fig. 3. Flowchart of the gravimetric–isostatic Moho synthesis.
3.3. Draw map
At the end of the MohoIso.m a sub-code is presented for
drawing the map of output results. This is performed using some
excellent MATLAB tools, such as stem, contourfm and worldmap
functions. For example the function setm plots the data sequence
as stems that extend from equally spaced and automatically
generated values along the x-axis. When the data is a matrix,
stem plots all elements in a row against the same x value. The
function worldmap map a country or region using the atlas data.
The function contourfm produces a contour plot of map data
projected onto the current map axes. The input latitude and
longitude vectors should be the same size of the map (as in a
geolocated data grid), or can specify the corresponding row and
column dimensions for the map.
In this part, some parameters, which are important to deter-
mine the crustal thickness, are defined. Maximum degree and
order of EGM and digital terrain model (DTM) is calculated based
on the resolution of the Moho depth, which is already defined in
INPUT.txt , which is defined by nmax (i.e. nmax ¼(1801/D1) where D1
is the grid size). After reading the spherical harmonic coefficients
of the Earth’s gravity field by the function ReadEGM.m
(e.g. EGM08), the program subtracts normal GRS80 coefficients
ð8Þ from zonal EGMs coefficients to estimate the free-air gravity
anomalies. Here we used the potential derived from GRS80
model. The ellipsoidal parameters of GRS80 used in the program
can be obtained from text books (e.g. Moritz, 1992).
After storing the EGM data, the gravity anomalies will be
estimated in mGal by the EGM. Then the approximate VMM Moho
depth is determined using Eq. (3). Now two corrections terms, in
Eq. (6), for estimating the final Moho depth are determined by
CorrectionProg2.m function. The inner zone contributions around
each computation point are calculated by InnerCoProg2.m function
by Eq. (7c). In this function the unknowns Tx, Ty, Txx, Txy and Txy
are estimated using the least-square solution around the computa-
tion points by Eq. (7b). Here the approximate Moho depth
is used as initial value to estimate the unknown coefficients
in Eq. (7b).
An ASCII file is then written for the final results, which consist
of five columns: latitude and longitude (deg.), the VMM Moho
depth (km), height (km) and free-air gravity anomaly (mGal).
These data are available through RESULTS.txt. The final outputs are
two the figures, which are the VMM Moho depth and the the
Bougure gravity anomaly.
Fig. 3 shows a flowchart of the crustal thickness estimation
based on the VMM model using an EGM and DTM models. The
inputs are showed by the latitudes and longitudes (S, N, W and E)
Plm.m
DFg
RESULTS.tx
Y (Q )
G T(P)
CorrectionProg2.m
InnerCoProg2.m
corrections
adding
f
B
T (P)
A
DFt1
 M. Bagherbandi / Computers & Geosciences 44 (2012) 177–183
with dimension of 1  kj and 1  kl, respectively. The geopoten-
tial coefficients c and the harmonic coefficients of topographic
height cH matrices are constructed, which have the dimensions
nmax  nmax .
After constructing the harmonic coefficients matrices of topo-
graphy and geopotential, the factor fi (see Eq. (9a) for computing
Dg is calculated by (cf. Eshagh and Abdollahzadeh, 2010)
h i
DFg ¼ f 2 f 3    f nmax  Ikj 1 ð9aÞ
where
GM
fi ¼ ðn1Þ
R2
where  stands for Kronecker’s product and I is unit vector. DFg is
a matrix with the same dimension of the Ynm(Q) matrix (Eq. (4b)).
We use the vectorization technique here to increase the speed of
the program. The interested readers can find the details in
Sneeuw (2009) and Eshagh (2009).
According to the vectorization technique the gravity anomaly
harmonics of
GM
Dg nm ¼ ðn1ÞðC nm cos ml þSnm sin mlÞPnm ðcos yÞ
R2
can be presented as the following form which is using the
advantage of multiplication of vectors
Gnm ¼ ðYnm #DFgÞc nm
where # is multiplication of each corresponding elements of the
matrices.
We construct other factor for Eq. (3) as
h i
DFt1 ¼ t 2 t 3    t nmax  Ikj 1 ð11aÞ
 
1 1
ti ¼ 2
4p n þ1
Again using vectorization technique Eq. (3) can be written
ðT 1 Þnm ¼ ðYnm #DFt1Þf nm
4. Numerical results by MohoIso.m
In this paper the recent theory of the VMM model is used to
estimate the Moho depth. The results are determined based on
using the Earth Gravitational Model EGM08 (Pavlis et al., 2008)
and Digital Topographic Model DTM2006 (Pavlis et al., 2007) up
to degree and order 90 corresponding to 21  21 grid in Iran as the
default case. The study area is selected between 201 and  451 N
and 401 to  701 W for instance in INPUT.txt. It is necessary to
mention that the high degrees in the crustal modeling is mean-
ingless, because the Moho surface is a smooth surface and
determining the Moho surface in denser resolutions is not
realistic.
Before presenting the final results for the VMM Moho depth,
we review the assumptions used in the MATLAB code. The
constants used in the MATLAB code are listed in Table 1. Among
these values, the density assumptions for crust, topographic mass
and upper mantle can affect our results significantly. In addition,
the program requires a prior knowledge of two main parameters
i.e. the MDC and normal Moho depth. The normal Moho depth in
Eq. (5) can be estimated by CRUST2.0 (Bassin et al., 2000) in each
region. The global crustal model CRUST2.0, released by the US
Geological Survey and Institute for Geophysics at the University
of California, is obtained based on using the travel times of
seismic waves. CRUST2.0 is a global crustal model at a 21  21
181
Table 1
The constant values used in MohoIso.m MATLAB code.
Parameter Value Remarks
r 2670 kg/m3 Mean topographic and crustal density
rm 3270 kg/m3 Density of mantle
rw 1027 kg/m3 Density of water
G 6.674e  11 m3/kg s2 Gravitational constant
GM 0.3986004418Eþ 15 Product of the gravitational constant
and Earth
R 6,378,137 m The mean Earth radius
ð9bÞ
ð10aÞ
ð10bÞ
Fig. 4. Topographic height from DTM2006 with resolution of 21  21. Unit: km.
grid as it offers a detailed density structure of the crust and
uppermost mantle. The 7th layer of the CRUST2.0 belongs to the
Moho depth and other layers of this model are (1) ice, (2) water,
(3) soft sediments, (4) hard sediments, (5) upper crust, (6) middle
crust and (7) lower crust. This model is available through http://
ð11bÞ
igppweb.ucsd.edu/~gabi/rem.dir/crust/crust2.html. The mean Moho
depths (with respect to sea level) are 21.8 km (global), 38.0 km
(continents) and 12.6 km (ocean), see Mooney et al. (1998) for more
ð11cÞ details.
According to Bagherbandi and Sjöberg (2011a) assuming 0.6
g/cm3 for the MDC is too large especially for oceanic areas.
Because of this reason, we have to select a realistic MDC in each
region. We can obtain the MDC for a region by comparing the
VMM results with CRUST2.0 for instance by altering the MDC.
Testing the different MDC continues while the rms of difference of
the VMM and CRUST2.0 become smaller than other cases. Another
way to introduce the MDC is using CRUST2.0 density layers.
By subtracting the mantle density from the CRUST2.0 density
data, we achieve the MDC (Bagherbandi, 2011, Chapter 3). An
alternative method to determine the Moho density contrast is
using the method proposed by Sjöberg and Bagherbandi (2011).
They presented some methods to estimate the MDC through
CRUST2.0 based on the VMM model. The mean value of the
MDC based on Sjöberg and Bagherbandi (2011) is 0.43 g/cm3,
globally. This value show there is large systematic difference
between the continental and oceanic MDC. The MATLAB code
MohoIso.m works based on two different values for the MDC in
land and ocean. These values are different for each area, for
example we use 0.43 g/cm3 both in land and ocean in Iran.
Figs. 4 and 5 show the global solid Earth topography using
DTM2006 and the Bouguer gravity anomaly estimated from
EGM08 with 21  21 resolution. The statistic of the estimated
heights is presented in Table 2. The program uses these data to
determine the approximate Moho depth (T1) by Eq. (3).
The global approximate Moho depth (T1) has been presented
by Fig. 6. It varies between 3.2 km and 61 km. In this figure, we
have not corrected the gravity anomalies based on the ice
182 M. Bagherbandi / Computers & Geosciences 44 (2012) 177–183

Fig. 5. Bouguer gravity anomaly (DgB) from EGM08 with resolution of 21  21.
Unit: mGal.
Fig. 7. Final VMM Moho depth with resolution of 21  21 in Iran. Unit: km.

Fig. 6. Approximate crustal thickness from the VMM model (T1) with resolution of
21  21. Unit: km.

Fig. 8. Percentages of the corrections terms for updating the approximate Moho
Table 2 depth T1 with respect to T1 in Iran. Unit: %.
Statistical analysis of topographic height (H), approximate Moho depth (T1),
CRUST2.0 (TSM), final VMM Moho depth (TVMM) and difference between VMM
Moho depth and CRUST2.0 in Iran with 21  21 resolution. Unit: km. depth are similar to CRUST2.0. As mentioned already CRUST2.0 is
an external crustal model in this study.
Quantities Max Mean Min Std rms As discussed before, we should consider the first and second-
order corrections to the approximate Moho depth T1 because they
H 5.5  1.9  6.6 2.6 –
T1 47.6 36.9 21.4 4.4 – have significant role in some areas. Fig. 8 shows the percentage of
TVMM 49.4 37.1 20.8 4.8 – each one with respect to T1 from south-west to north-east of Iran.
TSM 48.8 38.7 11.8 5.2 – The maximum, mean, minimum and standard deviation of the
TSM  TVMM 10.5 1.6  12.3 4.1 4.4
percentages are 8.5%, 0.8%,  2.5% and 1.6%, respectively. As we
can observe in some points the corrections terms are important to
consider for determining the final Moho depth.
thicknesses in Antarctica and Greenland. In order to remove this
problem we can use the ice thickness to obtain pure topographic
data. For this issue one can use the CRUST2.0 and British 5. Conclusions
Antarctica Survey (BAS) ice data (cf. Bagherbandi, 2011).
In addition, the topographic masses need to introduce the true The MATLAB code presented in this paper needs global Earth
density instead of constant values assumed, which we have Gravitational Model and solid Earth topography data for deter-
considered a constant value (see Table 2). T1 updates using two mining the crustal thickness by a gravimetric–isostatic model
correction terms, which have been presented in Eq. (6). i.e. the VMM model. The code (MohoIso.m) is designed to contain
The correction terms are the second and third terms in Eq. (6). a number of different subroutines. Using vectrization technique is
Here we focus on the Moho depth determination in Iran for very useful because of the speed of the calculation in this case. In
instance. Fig. 7 shows the final VMM Moho depth. There are large addition applying the vectorization technique can compete with
correlation and similarities between the VMM Moho depth and fast Fourier transform technique. The obtained results are pro-
CRUST2.0 as a known Moho model. This relationship is remark- mising because of the small rms obtained in comparison with
able except some differences appear, which are due to the lack of CRUST2.0. Generally, we found a good agreement between the
data for defining the realistic density of crust and topography. Moho geometry obtained from EGM08 and DTM2006 with the
Other problem is related to seismic data gap in Iran. CRUST2.0 can rms of 4.4 km in Iran for instance. Some differences are due to our
help us to test the VMM Moho depth in study area. assumptions for density of crust, topographic mass, upper mantle
Table 2 shows the statistic of the results. The last row of the and the data gaps in the CRUST2.0 model. In addition, the isostatic
table compares the VMM Moho depth with CRUST2.0. By compar- hypothesis assumes that all topographic potential compensate by
ing the results we observe that the statistics of the VMM Moho variable density and crustal thickness, which is not the case in
 M. Bagherbandi / Computers & Geosciences 44 (2012) 177–183
reality. We know that the real Earth is very complicated from our
assumption for the VMM model. Another problem is lack of the
terrestrial gravity data to compute the crustal thickness, which is
main reason to use EGM08 instead of the terrestrial data.
In conclusions, we think that the VMM Moho depth estimation
is good starting point to complete the CRUST2.0 model because of
its data gap problem (cf. Eshagh et al., 2011). This issue (combi-
nation of the VMM and CRUST2.0) will be very useful for the
future geophysical and seismological applications.
Acknowledgment
The author would like to thank Professor Lars E. Sjöberg for the
scientific discussion about the Vening Meinesz–Mortiz hypothesis.
Professor N. Sneeuw is cordially acknowledged for his guidance
and fruitful discussions about fully normalized associated Legendre
functions and vectorization technique. Dr. M. Eshagh is gratefully
thanked because of our discussion about vectorization technique
and his support. The Swedish National Space Board (SNSB) is
cordially acknowledged for the financial support, project no.
76/10:1. The unknowns’ reviewers are cordially appreciated for
their constructive comments on the manuscript. Dr. D. Gómez
Ortiz immensely acknowledged for reviewing the paper.
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