Seismic structure beneath the Gulf of Aqaba and adjacent areas based on the tomographic inversion of regional earthquake data
| Autor: | Ivan Koulakov, Alexey G. Petrunin, Nassir Al-Arifi, Sami El Khrepy |
|---|---|
| Přispěvatelé: | Juhlin, C. Christofer |
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2016 |
| Předmět: |
Dead sea
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences Stratigraphy Soil Science 010502 geochemistry & geophysics 01 natural sciences Mantle (geology) lcsh:Stratigraphy Geochemistry and Petrology ddc:550 0105 earth and related environmental sciences Earth-Surface Processes lcsh:QE640-699 Continental crust lcsh:QE1-996.5 Paleontology Transform fault Geology Crust Lithospheric mantle Travel time lcsh:Geology Geophysics Sinistral and dextral Seismology |
| Zdroj: | Solid Earth, Vol 7, Iss 3, Pp 965-978 (2016) Solid Earth |
| ISSN: | 1869-9529 1869-9510 |
| Popis: | The Gulf of Aqaba is an elongated basin (~180 x 20 km) with depths reaching 1850 m. It represents the southern segment of the Dead Sea Transform (DST), which is one of the largest transform fault zones in the world. The opening of Gulf of Aqaba is thought to have originated from the relative displacement of the African and Arabian Plates. According to historical and recent earthquake records, it is seismically active. In this study, we present the first 3D model of seismic P and S velocities beneath the Gulf of Aqaba area based on the results of passive travel time tomography. The tomographic inversion was performed based on travel time data from ~9000 regional earthquakes provided by the Egyptian National Seismological Network (ENSN) and the International Seismological Center (ISC). The inversion results are generally consistent for P- and S-velocity patterns at all depths. At all depth intervals in the Red Sea, we observed strong high-velocity anomalies with abrupt limits that coincide with the coastal lines. This finding suggests that the oceanic nature of the crust in the northern Red Sea does not support the concept of gradual stretching of the continental crust. According to our results, in the middle and lower crust, the seismic anomalies seem to delineate a sinistral shift (~100 km) in the opposite flanks of the fault zone that is consistent with other estimates of the left-lateral displacement in the southern part of the DST. However, no displacement structures are visible in the upper-most lithospheric mantle. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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