Elastic and Viscoelastic Response of the Lithosphere to Surface Loading

Abstract

This chapter presents the main rheological features of the lithosphere and of the upper mantle with respect to deformations of the solid Earth in response to time-varying surface loading. Rheological aspects as numerical modeling are discussed in view of the general strategies applied in geophysics, which are perturbations of a self-gravitating, non-rotating, linearly viscoelastic, isostatically pre-stressed Earth (SNRVEI) in a spherical geometry. Based on this model, limits of present modeling and future directions are discussed.