In the regions of present-day convergence the fast direction of anisotropy usually aligns with the plate boundary. This correlation implies that the direction of shortening is the same in the crust and the upper mantle. In the regions of rifting, the inferred direction of mantle flow usually aligns with the direction of extension in the crust.

Outside the regions of recent tectonic activity we, most likely, observe a combined effect of frozen anisotropy in the subcrustal lithosphere and of recently formed anisotropy in the asthenosphere. On a global scale, in these regions there is a positive correlation between the absolute plate velocity directions and the fast directions of anisotropy. The correlation is especially strong in central and eastern parts of North America. A clear absence of any evidence of large-scale azimuthal anisotropy in the data of long-range refraction profiling for the upper 100 km of the mantle of that region implies that the effect in SKS is generated mainly at greater depths, in the asthenosphere. Orientation of olivine at these depths reflects recent and present-day flow in the mantle rather than processes of a distant geologic past.