3-D Modeling for Upper Mantle Anisotropy Beneath Idaho-Oregon (IDOR) Region Using Sks Splitting Intensity Measurements from IDOR Passive Seismic Project Dataset

Abstract:

We used data recorded at 86 broadband seismic stations of the IDOR Passive Seismic Project to determine upper mantle anisotropy across the suture along which Blue Mountain island-arc terranes accreted to North America during Cretaceous. This suture is currently associated with the Western Idaho Shear Zone (WISZ), a narrow, highly-deformed ductile fault that was the locus of both dextral strike-slip along, and subduction beneath, the Paleozoic margin of the North American craton. We measured shear wave splitting intensity (SI), a seismic observable that is suitable for use in 3-D inversions of upper mantle seismic anisotropy, to determine these fabrics beneath the IDOR network. SI fast-polarization directions are spatially coherent across the region, and fall into three main groups: a group with fast azimuths trending ENE-WSW, observed at stations in eastern Oregon and the NW-SE-striking western Snake River Plain; a group with E-W trending fast azimuths observed at stations along the WISZ and the Idaho Batholith, which outcrops immediately east of the suture zone; and a group with ENE-WSW trending fast azimuths observed at stations situated in the Basin-and-Range extended region of southeastern Idaho. SI delay times range from 0.46 to 1.85 seconds, with a mean of 1.1 s. We also used backazimuthal variations of SI at all stations to invert for for 3-D anisotropic fabric using the finite-frequency approach called vectorial tomography (Chevrot and Monteiller, 2009). Our preliminary results are consistent with alignment of upper mantle fabrics in the extension direction as Basin-and-Range extension propagates northward into less-extended regions of Idaho and Oregon.