Moho topography beneath the European Eastern Alps by global-phase seismic interferometry

Irene Bianchi*, Elmer Ruigrok, Anne Obermann, Edi Kissling

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

In this work we present the application of the global-phase seismic interferometry (GloPSI) technique to a dataset recorded across the Eastern Alps with the EASI (Eastern Alpine Seismic Investigation) temporary seismic network. GloPSI aims at rendering an image of the lithosphere from the waves that travel across the core before reaching the seismic stations (i.e. PKP, PKiKP, PKIKP). The technique is based on the principle that a stack of autocorrelations of transmission responses mimics the reflection response of a medium and is used here to retrieve information about the crust-mantle boundary, such as its depth and topography. We produce images of the upper lithosphere using 64 teleseismic events. We notice that with GloPSI, we can well image the topography of the Moho in regions where it shows a nearly planar behaviour and corresponds to a strong velocity contrast (i.e. in the northern part of the profile, from the Bohemian Massif to the Northern Calcareous Alps). Below the higher crests of the Alpine chain, and the Tauern Window in particular, we cannot find evidence of the boundary between crust and mantle. The GloPSI results indicate the absence of an Adriatic crust made of laterally continuous layers smoothly descending southwards and confirm the observations of previous studies suggesting a structurally complex and faulted internal Alpine crustal structure.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1185-1196
Number of pages12
JournalSolid Earth
Volume12
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 27 May 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Acknowledgements. We thank Jaroslava Plomerová and György Hetényi for their major contribution to the realization, deployment and maintenance of the EASI seismic transect. Irene Bianchi thanks Götz Bokelmann, Florian Fuchs, Petr Kolinsky´ and the other members of the IMG Vienna, for the support given to the realization and logistics of the Viennese contribution to the EASI project. We thank the Alparray-EASI field team: Jaroslava Plomerová, Helena Munzarová, Ludek Vecsey, Petr Jedlicka, Josef Kotek, Irene Bianchi, Maria-Theresia Apoloner, Florian Fuchs, Patrick Ott, Ehsan Qorbani, Katalin Gribovszki, Peter Kolinsky, Peter Jordakiev, Hans Huber, Stefano Solar-ino, Aladino Govoni, Simone Salimbeni, Lucia Margheriti, Adriano Cavaliere, John Clinton, Roman Racine, Sacha Barman, Robert Tanner, Pascal Graf, Laura Ermert, Anne Obermann, Stefan Hiemer, Meysam Rezaeifar, Edith Korger, Ludwig Auer, Ko-rbinian Sager, György Hetényi, Irene Molinari, Marcus Herrmann, Saulé Zukauskaité, Paula Koelemeijer and Sascha Winterberg. We thank F. Bleibinhaus for providing his P-wave velocity model of the ALP2002-01 profile, used here for the depth migration. Irene Bianchi acknowledges the support of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) Project J 4314-N29. We thank the SPP 4DMB project for making public the generalized tectonic map of the Alps (http://www.spp-mountainbuilding.de, last access: 15 December 2019), which we used in Fig. 1. We thank two anonymous reviewers and Anne Paul for their constructive comments on our work.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Copernicus GmbH. All rights reserved.

Funding

Acknowledgements. We thank Jaroslava Plomerová and György Hetényi for their major contribution to the realization, deployment and maintenance of the EASI seismic transect. Irene Bianchi thanks Götz Bokelmann, Florian Fuchs, Petr Kolinsky´ and the other members of the IMG Vienna, for the support given to the realization and logistics of the Viennese contribution to the EASI project. We thank the Alparray-EASI field team: Jaroslava Plomerová, Helena Munzarová, Ludek Vecsey, Petr Jedlicka, Josef Kotek, Irene Bianchi, Maria-Theresia Apoloner, Florian Fuchs, Patrick Ott, Ehsan Qorbani, Katalin Gribovszki, Peter Kolinsky, Peter Jordakiev, Hans Huber, Stefano Solar-ino, Aladino Govoni, Simone Salimbeni, Lucia Margheriti, Adriano Cavaliere, John Clinton, Roman Racine, Sacha Barman, Robert Tanner, Pascal Graf, Laura Ermert, Anne Obermann, Stefan Hiemer, Meysam Rezaeifar, Edith Korger, Ludwig Auer, Ko-rbinian Sager, György Hetényi, Irene Molinari, Marcus Herrmann, Saulé Zukauskaité, Paula Koelemeijer and Sascha Winterberg. We thank F. Bleibinhaus for providing his P-wave velocity model of the ALP2002-01 profile, used here for the depth migration. Irene Bianchi acknowledges the support of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) Project J 4314-N29. We thank the SPP 4DMB project for making public the generalized tectonic map of the Alps (http://www.spp-mountainbuilding.de, last access: 15 December 2019), which we used in Fig. 1. We thank two anonymous reviewers and Anne Paul for their constructive comments on our work.

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Moho topography beneath the European Eastern Alps by global-phase seismic interferometry'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this