Attenuation Tomography of the Earthʹs Mantle: A Review of Current Status

Resolving the lateral variations of attenuation in the deep mantle by tomographic methods holds potential for constraining its thermal structure and dynamics. It is a challenging subject which has been addressed by only a few studies until now. We here review the main motivations behind pursuing this challenge, the difficult issues involved in separating effects of anelastic attenuation from scattering and focusing due to propagation in 3-D elastic structure and finally discuss the current status of global attenuation tomography.