Using Ambient Noise to Image the Northern East African Rift

The northern East African Rift (EAR) is a unique location where we observe continental rifting in the Main Ethiopian Rift (MER) transitioning to incipient seafloor spreading in Afar. Here we present a 3‐D absolute shear wave velocity model of the crust and uppermost mantle of the northern EAR genera...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geochemistry, geophysics, geosystems : G3 geophysics, geosystems : G3, 2019-04, Vol.20 (4), p.2091-2109
Main Authors: Chambers, Emma L., Harmon, Nicholas, Keir, Derek, Rychert, Catherine A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Ambient noise
ambient noise tomography
continental rifting
Correlation analysis
Crustal structure
Earth
East African rRift
Fault zones
Fluids
Geological history
Heating
Lava
Magma
Mantle
Noise
Ocean basins
Ocean circulation
Ocean floor
partial melt
Peridotite
Phase velocity
Regions
Rifting
Seafloor spreading
seismic noise
Seismic velocities
Shear wave velocities
surface waves
Tomography
Upwelling
Velocity
Wave velocity
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Request full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The northern East African Rift (EAR) is a unique location where we observe continental rifting in the Main Ethiopian Rift (MER) transitioning to incipient seafloor spreading in Afar. Here we present a 3‐D absolute shear wave velocity model of the crust and uppermost mantle of the northern EAR generated from ambient noise tomography. We generate 4,820 station pair correlation functions, from 170 stations (present over 12 years), which were inverted for phase velocity from 8–33 s period and finally for 3‐D absolute shear velocity structure to 60‐km depth. Everywhere in the uppermost mantle, shear velocity is slower than expected for a mantle peridotite composition (
ISSN:1525-2027
1525-2027
DOI:10.1029/2018GC008129