• Main Authors: Piotr Środa, Instytut Geofizyki, Polska Akademia Nauk
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Pacific Ocean NW of South Shetland Islands. Key words; Antarctic Peninsula; seismic modelling; tomography; crustal structure; Antarctic; Bransfield Strait; Hero Fracture Zone; Pacific; South Shetland Islands; The Antarctic; West Antarctica; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.631.759; http://www.polar.pan.pl/ppr22/2001-2_129-146.pdf

Three-dimensional modelling of the crustal structure in the contact zone between Antarctic Peninsula and South Pacific from seismic data ABSTRACT: During four Polish Geodynamical Expeditions to West Antarctica between 1979 and 1991, seismic measurements were made along 21 deep refraction profiles in the Bransfield Strait and along the coastal area of Antarctic Peninsula using explosion sources. Recordings were made by 16 land stations and 8 ocean bottom seismometers. Good quality recordings were obtained up to about 250 km distance. This allowed a detailed study of the seismic wave field and crustal structure. Three-dimensional tomographic inversion was carried out using first arriv als from the complete data set including off-line recordings. As a result, we obtained a 3-D model of the P-wave velocity distribution in the study area. In the area adjacent to the Antarctic Peninsula coast, sedimentary cover of 0.2 to 3 km thickness was found, whereas in the shelf area and in the Bransfield Strait sedimentary basins with thickness from 5 to 8 km were observed. In the Bransfield Strait a high velocity body with Vp> 7.5 km/s was found at 12 km depth. The use of the off-line data allowed for determination of the horizontal extent of the body. The thickness of the crust varies from more than 35-40 km in the coastal area south of the Hero Fracture Zone to 30-35 km in the area of Bransfield Strait and South Shetland Islands and about 12 km in the