Frederik Link, Dr. rer. nat.

My research is dedicated to unraveling the intricate interactions between Earth’s lithospheric deformation and mantle flow within the asthenosphere, specifically at the sutures of tectonic plates where their inherent movements are accommodated resulting in earthquake ruptures. At its essence, my work seeks to deepen our comprehension of Earth’s dynamic system, placing emphasis on seismic anisotropy as a pivotal tool for this purpose. To achieve this, I employ various seismic methods, notably shear-wave splitting and receiver function techniques. Both methodologies offer direct insights into mantle and crustal deformation, with receiver functions providing a window into shallower lithospheric structures such as orogens, subduction zones, rifts, and faults, while shear-wave splitting is more attuned to larger-scale deformation and mantle flow. Essentially, this allows me to advance outstanding questions in Earth science such as:

Where, how and why do plates break-up?

What are the driving forces of plate tectonics?

How does the mantle respond to or control plate boundaries?

How does the Earth dynamic system affect the occurrence and strength of rupture processes?

I developed several publicly available toolboxes to analyse anisotropic properties of the subsurface.

• You can find a fully automatized tool for shear-wave splitting analysis (SplitRacerAUTO) at the following website: https://www.geophysik.uni-frankfurt.de/64002762/Software
• A package to analyze shear-wave splitting intensities for 2D or 3D anisotropic structure of the mantle is provided on my github page: https://github.com/seismolink/SItomo

You will find below a set of open access publications. For more details about my work and recent publications, please visit my google scholar or research gate pages.