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Depth to Moho GeoTIFF grids for the United States, Canada, and Australia

Metadata Updated: July 31, 2025

The Mohorovicic discontinuity or 'Moho' maps the boundary between the earth's crust and mantle and is defined by an abrupt change in seismic velocity due to changes in the density of rocks between the crust and mantle. GeoTIFF grids that map depth to Moho (crustal thickness) for the United States and Canada, and for Australia are provided in this report and were used as evidential layers in developing prospectivity models for basin-hosted Pb-Zn mineralization (Lawley and others, 2022). A composite grid of Moho depths across the United States and Canada was created using data from Shen and Ritzwoller (2016) for the conterminous United States, from Zhang and others (2019) for Alaska, and from Schetselaar and Snyder (2017) for Canada. For this study, data covering North America were gridded onto a 0.25 degree grid and merged to create the composite grid across the United States and Canada. A grid of depth to Moho for Australia is from Kennett and others (2011). The GeoTiff grid of Moho for Australia is provided here as a courtesy for completeness of the model. The original data sources should be cited specific to the area covered. References Kennett, B.L.N., Salmon, M., Saygin, E., and AusMoho Working Group, 2011, AusMoho: The variation of Moho depth in Australia: Geophysical Journal International, v. 187, no. 2, p. 946-958, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-246X.2011.05194.x. Lawley, C.J.M., McCafferty, A.E, Graham, G.E., Huston, D.L., Kelley, K.D., Czarnota, K., Paradis, S., Peter, J.M., Hayward, N., Barlow, M., Emsbo, P., Coyan, J., San Juan, C.A., and Gadd, M.G., 2022, Data-driven prospectivity modelling of sediment-hosted Zn-Pb mineral systems and their critical raw materials: Ore Geology Reviews, v. 141, no. 104635, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oregeorev.2021.104635. Schetselaar, E.M., and Snyder, D.B., 2017, National database of Moho depth estimates from seismic refraction and teleseismic surveys: Natural Resources Canada Open File 8243, https://doi.org/10.4095/305396. Shen, W., and Ritzwoller, M.H., 2016, 3D shear-wave velocity model of the US from joint inversion of surface wave dispersion from ambient noise and earthquakes, Rayleigh wave H/V ratio, and receiver functions: Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology, https://doi.org/10.17611/DP/EMCUS2016. Zhang, Y., Li, A., and Hu, H., 2019, Crustal structure in Alaska from receiver function analysis: Geophysical Research Letters, v. 46, no. 3, p. 1284-1292, https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL081011.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

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Dates

Metadata Created Date August 30, 2023
Metadata Updated Date July 31, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI EDI

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date August 30, 2023
Metadata Updated Date July 31, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
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Identifier USGS:61cdf5f9d34ed79293fc8712
Data Last Modified 20250331
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://datainventory.doi.gov/data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id ef108be8-feff-400c-8031-6464b959b3a9
Harvest Source Id 52bfcc16-6e15-478f-809a-b1bc76f1aeda
Harvest Source Title DOI EDI
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -173.125,-43.65,153.65,83.125
Publisher Hierarchy White House > U.S. Department of the Interior > U.S. Geological Survey
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 2f6383d82e80f1c7b839ca01b132ddb2143bda66d34aa693f1e4ad3364115ce0
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -173.125, -43.65, -173.125, 83.125, 153.65, 83.125, 153.65, -43.65, -173.125, -43.65}

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