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Low-velocity Zones (low-velocity + zone)

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Earth and Environmental Science100%

Selected Abstracts

Crustal structure of central and northern Iceland from analysis of teleseismic receiver functions

GEOPHYSICAL JOURNAL INTERNATIONAL, Issue 1 2000
Fiona A. Darbyshire
We present results from a teleseismic receiver function study of central and northern Iceland, carried out during the period 1995,1998. Data from eight broad-band seismometers installed in the SIL network operated by the Icelandic Meteorological Office were used for analysis. Receiver functions for each station were generated from events for a wide range of backazimuths and a combination of inversion and forward modelling was used to infer the crustal structure below each station. The models generated show a considerable variation in the nature and thickness of the crust across Iceland. The thinnest crust (20,21 km) is found in the northern half of the Northern Volcanic Zone approximately 120 km north of the centre of the Iceland mantle plume. Thicker crust (24,30 km) is found elsewhere in northern and central Iceland and the thickest crust (37 km) is found close to the plume centre. Velocity,depth profiles show a distinct division of the crust into two main sections, an upper high-velocity-gradient section of thickness 2,8 km and a lower crustal section with small or zero overall velocity gradient. The thickness of the upper crust correlates with the tectonic structure of Iceland; the upper crust is thickest on the flanks of the northern and central volcanic rift zones and thinnest close to active or extinct central volcanoes. Below the Krafla central volcano in northeastern Iceland the receiver function models show a prominent low-velocity zone at 10,15 km depth with minimum shear wave velocities of 2.0,2.5 km s,1. We suggest that this feature results from the presence of partially molten sills in the lower crust. Less prominent low-velocity zones found in other regions of Iceland may arise from locally high temperatures in the crust or from acidic intrusive bodies at depth. A combination of the receiver function results and seismic refraction results constrains the crustal thickness across a large part of Iceland. Melting by passive decompression of the hot mantle below the rift zone in northern Iceland forms a crust of thickness ,20 km. In contrast, the larger crustal thickness below central Iceland probably arises from enhanced melt production due to active upwelling in the plume core. [source]

Three-dimensional seismic structure beneath the Australasian region from refracted wave observations

GEOPHYSICAL JOURNAL INTERNATIONAL, Issue 3 2000
Y. Kaiho
The earthquakes in the seismicity belt extending through Indonesia, New Guinea, Vanuatu and Fiji to the Tonga,Kermadec subduction zone recorded at the 65 portable broad-band stations deployed during the Skippy experiment from 1993,1996 provide good coverage of the lithosphere and mantle under the Australian continent, Coral Sea and Tasman Sea. The variation in structure in the upper part of the mantle is characterized by deter-mining a suite of 1-D structures from stacked record sections utilizing clear P and S arrivals, prepared for all propagation paths lying within a 10° azimuth band. The azimuth of these bands is rotated by 20° steps with four parallel corridors for each azimuth. This gives 26 separate azimuthal corridors for which 15 independent 1-D seismic velocity structures have been derived, which show significant variation in P and S structure. The set of 1-D structures is combined to produce a 3-D representation by projecting the velocity values along the ray path using a turning point approximation and stacking into 3-D cells (5° by 50 km in depth). Even though this procedure will tend to underestimate wave-speed perturbations, S -velocity deviations from the ak135 reference model exceed 6 per cent in the lithosphere. In the uppermost mantle the results display complex features and very high S -wave speeds beneath the Precambrian shields with a significant low-velocity zone beneath. High velocities are also found towards the base of the transition zone, with highS -wave speeds beneath the continent and high P -wave speeds beneath the ocean. The wave-speed patterns agree well with independent surface wave studies and delay time tomography studies in the zones of common coverage. [source]

Waveform modelling of teleseismic S, Sp, SsPmP, and shear-coupled PL waves for crust- and upper-mantle velocity structure beneath Africa

GEOPHYSICAL JOURNAL INTERNATIONAL, Issue 3 2007
Abhijit Gangopadhyay
SUMMARY We describe a waveform modelling technique and demonstrate its application to determine the crust- and upper-mantle velocity structure beneath Africa. Our technique uses a parallelized reflectivity method to compute synthetic seismograms and fits the observed waveforms by a global optimization technique based on a Very Fast Simulated Annealing (VFSA). We match the S, Sp, SsPmP and shear-coupled PL phases in seismograms of deep (200,800 km), moderate-to-large magnitude (5.5,7.0) earthquakes recorded teleseismically at permanent broad-band seismic stations in Africa. Using our technique we produce P - and S -wave velocity models of crust and upper mantle beneath Africa. Additionally, our use of the shear-coupled PL phase, wherever observed, improves the constraints for lower crust- and upper-mantle velocity structure beneath the corresponding seismic stations. Our technique retains the advantages of receiver function methods, uses a different part of the seismogram, is sensitive to both P - and S -wave velocities directly, and obtains helpful constraints in model parameters in the vicinity of the Moho. The resulting range of crustal thicknesses beneath Africa (21,46 km) indicates that the crust is thicker in south Africa, thinner in east Africa and intermediate in north and west Africa. Crustal P - (4.7,8 km s,1) and S -wave velocities (2.5,4.7 km s,1) obtained in this study show that in some parts of the models, these are slower in east Africa and faster in north, west and south Africa. Anomalous crustal low-velocity zones are also observed in the models for seismic stations in the cratonic regions of north, west and south Africa. Overall, the results of our study are consistent with earlier models and regional tectonics of Africa. [source]

Crustal structure of central and northern Iceland from analysis of teleseismic receiver functions

GEOPHYSICAL JOURNAL INTERNATIONAL, Issue 1 2000
Fiona A. Darbyshire
We present results from a teleseismic receiver function study of central and northern Iceland, carried out during the period 1995,1998. Data from eight broad-band seismometers installed in the SIL network operated by the Icelandic Meteorological Office were used for analysis. Receiver functions for each station were generated from events for a wide range of backazimuths and a combination of inversion and forward modelling was used to infer the crustal structure below each station. The models generated show a considerable variation in the nature and thickness of the crust across Iceland. The thinnest crust (20,21 km) is found in the northern half of the Northern Volcanic Zone approximately 120 km north of the centre of the Iceland mantle plume. Thicker crust (24,30 km) is found elsewhere in northern and central Iceland and the thickest crust (37 km) is found close to the plume centre. Velocity,depth profiles show a distinct division of the crust into two main sections, an upper high-velocity-gradient section of thickness 2,8 km and a lower crustal section with small or zero overall velocity gradient. The thickness of the upper crust correlates with the tectonic structure of Iceland; the upper crust is thickest on the flanks of the northern and central volcanic rift zones and thinnest close to active or extinct central volcanoes. Below the Krafla central volcano in northeastern Iceland the receiver function models show a prominent low-velocity zone at 10,15 km depth with minimum shear wave velocities of 2.0,2.5 km s,1. We suggest that this feature results from the presence of partially molten sills in the lower crust. Less prominent low-velocity zones found in other regions of Iceland may arise from locally high temperatures in the crust or from acidic intrusive bodies at depth. A combination of the receiver function results and seismic refraction results constrains the crustal thickness across a large part of Iceland. Melting by passive decompression of the hot mantle below the rift zone in northern Iceland forms a crust of thickness ,20 km. In contrast, the larger crustal thickness below central Iceland probably arises from enhanced melt production due to active upwelling in the plume core. [source]

Dissecting large earthquakes in Japan: Role of arc magma and fluids

ISLAND ARC, Issue 1 2010
Dapeng Zhao
Abstract We synthesized information from recent high-resolution tomographic studies of large crustal earthquakes which occurred in the Japanese Islands during 1995,2008. Prominent anomalies of low-velocity and high Poisson's ratio are revealed in the crust and uppermost mantle beneath the mainshock hypocenters, which may reflect arc magma and fluids that are produced by a combination of subducting slab dehydration and corner flow in the mantle wedge. Distribution of 164 crustal earthquakes (M 5.7,8.0) that occurred in Japan during 1885,2008 also shows a correlation with the distribution of low-velocity zones in the crust and uppermost mantle. A qualitative model is proposed to explain the geophysical observations recorded so far in Japan. We consider that the nucleation of a large earthquake is not entirely a mechanical process, but is closely related to the subduction dynamics and physical and chemical properties of materials in the crust and upper mantle; in particular, the arc magma and fluids. [source]