Two-station phase velocity determination for structure in North Africa
The seismic structure of North Africa is poorly understood due to the relative paucity of stations and seismicity when compared to other continental regions of the world. A better understanding of the velocity structure in this area will allow improved models of travel times and regional phase amplitudes. Such models will improve location and identification capability in this region leading to more effective monitoring of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. Using regional-to-teleseismic Rayleigh and Love waves that traverse the area we can obtain information about the region's seismic structure by examining phase velocity as a function of period. We utilize earthquakes from the tectonically active regions bounding North Africa (Mediterranean, Red Sea, East African Rift, and Mid-Atlantic Ridge) recorded at broadband seismic stations distributed throughout the region. A two-station method is utilized to determine phase velocity information along the interstation segment of the ray path. The two-station method provides particular advantage in this region as it dramatically increases the number of events available to provide pure North African sampling. Bandpass filters are applied to the seismograms so that peaks and troughs may be correlated. The phase is unwrapped and a difference curve computed. The difference curve is then converted to a phase velocity dispersion curve. Phase velocity curves are constructed in the range of 10 to 120 seconds. Rayleigh and Love waves in this period range are most sensitive to the shear velocity structure of the lithosphere and can be used in combination with additional independent seismic observations (e.g. Pn tomography, surface wave group velocity tomography, receiver functions, etc.) to construct reliable velocity models. We compare velocities computed in this study to those generated from well known models for similar tectonic regions throughout the world in order to better define the tectonic setting of North Africa. Results from this study help constrain the regional tectonics of the area and will also be used to better define the seismic characteristics required to verify the CTBT.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Defense Programs (DP) (US)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- OSTI ID:
- 14579
- Report Number(s):
- UCRL-JC-134316; GC0402000; GC0402000; TRN: AH200129%%324
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 21st Seismic Research Symposium: Technologies for Monitoring the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, Las Vegas, NV (US), 09/21/1999--09/24/1999; Other Information: PBD: 28 Jul 1999
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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