scholarly journals Forearc density structure of the overriding plate in the northern area of the giant 1960 Valdivia earthquake

Solid Earth ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-136
Author(s):  
Andrei Maksymowicz ◽  
Daniela Montecinos-Cuadros ◽  
Daniel Díaz ◽  
María José Segovia ◽  
Tomás Reyes

Abstract. The objective of this work is to analyse the density structure of the continental forearc in the northern segment of the 1960 Mw 9.6 Valdivia earthquake. Regional 2D and local 3D density models have been obtained from available gravity data in the area, complemented by new gravimetric stations. Models are constrained by independent geophysical and geological information and new TEM and MT soundings. The results show a segmentation of the continental wedge along and perpendicular to the margin, highlighting a high-density anomaly, below the onshore forearc basin, that limits the late Paleozoic–early Mesozoic metamorphic basement in the region where Chaitenia terrane has been proposed. A progressive landward shift of this anomaly correlates with the high slip patch of the giant 1960 Mw 9.6 Valdivia earthquake. Based on these results, we propose that the horizontal extension of the less rigid basement units conforming the marine wedge and Coastal Cordillera domain could modify the process of stress loading during the interseismic periods, and also that changes in position and extension of the late Paleozoic–early Mesozoic accretionary complex could be linked with the frictional properties of the interplate boundary. This analysis provides new evidence of the role of the overriding plate structure in the seismotectonic process in subduction zones.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrei Maksymowicz ◽  
Daniela Montecinos-Cuadros ◽  
Daniel Díaz ◽  
María José Segovia ◽  
Tomás Reyes

Abstract. The objective of this work is to analyse the density structure of the continental forearc in the northern segment of the 1960 Mw 9.6 Valdivia earthquake. Regional 2D and local 3D density models have been obtained from available gravity data in the area, complemented with new gravimetric stations. Models are constrained by independent geophysical/geological information and new TEM and MT soundings. The results show a segmentation of the continental wedge along and perpendicular to the margin, highlighting a high density anomaly, below the onshore forearc basin, that limits the Late Paleozoic-Early Mesozoic metamorphic basement in the region where Chaitenia terrain has been proposed. A progressive landward shift of this anomaly correlates with the high slip patch of the giant 1960 Mw 9.6 Valdivia earthquake. Based on these results, we propose that the horizontal extension of the less rigid basement units conforming the marine wedge and Coastal Cordillera domain could modify the process of stress loading during the interseismic periods, and also that changes in position and extension of the Late Paleozoic-Early Mesozoic accretionary complex could be linked with the frictional properties of the interplate boundary. This analysis provides new evidence of the role of the overriding plate structure on the seismotectonic process in subduction zones.


Solid Earth ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 1121-1144
Author(s):  
Yu Tian ◽  
Yong Wang

Abstract. The North China Craton (NCC) is one of the oldest cratons in the world. Currently, the destruction mechanism and geodynamics of the NCC remain controversial. All of the proposed views regarding the issues involve studying the internal density structure of the NCC lithosphere. Gravity field data are among the most important data in regard to investigating the lithospheric density structure, and gravity gradient data and gravity data each possess their own advantages. Given the different observational plane heights between the on-orbit GOCE (Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer) satellite gravity gradient and terrestrial gravity and the effects of the initial density model on the inversion results, sequential inversion of the gravity gradient and gravity are divided into two integrated processes. By using the preconditioned conjugate gradient (PCG) inversion algorithm, the density data are calculated using the preprocessed corrected gravity anomaly data. Then, the newly obtained high-resolution density data are used as the initial density model, which can serve as constraints for the subsequent gravity gradient inversion. Several essential corrections are applied to the four gravity gradient tensors (Txx, Txz, Tyy, Tzz) of the GOCE satellite, after which the corrected gravity gradient anomalies (T′xx, T′xz, T′yy, T′zz) are used as observations. The lithospheric density distribution result within the depth range of 0–180 km in the NCC is obtained. This study clearly illustrates that GOCE data are helpful in understanding the geological settings and tectonic structures in the NCC with regional scale. The inversion results show that in the crust the eastern NCC is affected by lithospheric thinning with obvious local features. In the mantle, the presented obvious negative-density areas are mainly affected by the high-heat-flux environment. In the eastern NCC, the density anomaly in the Bohai Bay area is mostly attributed to the extension of the Tancheng–Lujiang major fault at the eastern boundary. In the western NCC, the crustal density anomaly distribution of the Qilian block is consistent with the northwest–southeast strike of the surface fault belt, whereas such an anomaly distribution experiences a clockwise rotation to a nearly north–south direction upon entering the mantle.


1981 ◽  
Vol 79 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 201-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.B. Edel ◽  
R. Montigny ◽  
R. Thuizat
Keyword(s):  

2013 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paolo Capuano ◽  
Guido Russo ◽  
Roberto Scarpa

<p>A high-resolution image of the compressional wave velocity and density structure in the shallow edifice of Mount Vesuvius has been derived from simultaneous inversion of travel times and hypocentral parameters of local earthquakes and from gravity inversion. The robustness of the tomography solution has been improved by adding to the earthquake data a set of land based shots, used for constraining the travel time residuals. The results give a high resolution image of the P-wave velocity structure with details down to 300-500 m. The relocated local seismicity appears to extend down to 5 km depth below the central crater, distributed into two clusters, and separated by an anomalously high Vp region positioned at around 1 km depth. A zone with high Vp/Vs ratio in the upper layers is interpreted as produced by the presence of intense fluid circulation alternatively to the interpretation in terms of a small magma chamber inferred by petrologic studies. In this shallower zone the seismicity has the minimum energy, whilst most of the high-energy quakes (up to Magnitude 3.6) occur in the cluster located at greater depth. The seismicity appears to be located along almost vertical cracks, delimited by a high velocity body located along past intrusive body, corresponding to remnants of Mt. Somma. In this framework a gravity data inversion has been performed to study the shallower part of the volcano. Gravity data have been inverted using a method suitable for the application to scattered data in presence of relevant topography based on a discretization of the investigated medium performed by establishing an approximation of the topography by a triangular mesh. The tomography results, the retrieved density distribution, and the pattern of relocated seismicity exclude the presence of significant shallow magma reservoirs close to the central conduit. These should be located at depth higher than that of the base of the hypocenter volume, as evidenced by previous studies.</p>


Geophysics ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-45
Author(s):  
Vitaliy Ogarko ◽  
Jérémie Giraud ◽  
Roland Martin ◽  
Mark Jessell

To reduce uncertainties in reconstructed images, geological information must be introduced in a numerically robust and stable way during the geophysical data inversion procedure. In the context of potential (gravity) data inversion, it is important to bound the physical properties by providing probabilistic information on the number of lithologies and ranges of values of possibly existing related rock properties (densities). For this purpose, we introduce a generalization of bounding constraints for geophysical inversion based on the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). The flexibility of the proposed technique enables us to take into account petrophysical information as well as probabilistic geological modeling, when it is available. The algorithm introduces a priori knowledge in terms of physically acceptable bounds of model parameters based on the nature of the modeled lithofacies in the region under study. Instead of introducing only one interval of geologically acceptable values for each parameter representing a set of rock properties, we define sets of disjoint intervals using the available geological information. Different sets of intervals are tested, such as quasi-discrete (or narrow) intervals as well as wider intervals provided by geological information obtained from probabilistic geological modeling. Narrower intervals can be used as soft constraints encouraging quasi-discrete inversions. The algorithm is first applied to a synthetic 2D case for proof-of-concept validation and then to the 3D inversion of gravity data collected in the Yerrida basin (Western Australia). Numerical convergence tests show the robustness and stability of the bound constraints we apply, which is not always trivial for constrained inversions. This technique can be a more reliable uncertainty reduction method as well as an alternative to other petrophysically or geologically constrained inversions based on more classical “clustering” or Gaussian-mixture approaches.


Author(s):  
K. Jourde ◽  
D. Gibert ◽  
J. Marteau

Abstract. This paper examines how the resolution of small-scale geological density models is improved through the fusion of information provided by gravity measurements and density muon radiographies. Muon radiography aims at determining the density of geological bodies by measuring their screening effect on the natural flux of cosmic muons. Muon radiography essentially works like medical X-ray scan and integrates density information along elongated narrow conical volumes. Gravity measurements are linked to density by a 3-D integration encompassing the whole studied domain. We establish the mathematical expressions of these integration formulas – called acquisition kernels – and derive the resolving kernels that are spatial filters relating the true unknown density structure to the density distribution actually recovered from the available data. The resolving kernels approach allows to quantitatively describe the improvement of the resolution of the density models achieved by merging gravity data and muon radiographies. The method developed in this paper may be used to optimally design the geometry of the field measurements to perform in order to obtain a given spatial resolution pattern of the density model to construct. The resolving kernels derived in the joined muon/gravimetry case indicate that gravity data are almost useless to constrain the density structure in regions sampled by more than two muon tomography acquisitions. Interestingly the resolution in deeper regions not sampled by muon tomography is significantly improved by joining the two techniques. The method is illustrated with examples for La Soufrière of Guadeloupe volcano.


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