Crustal Thickness and Lower Crustal Velocity Structure Beneath the Endeavour Segment of the Juan de Fuca Ridge

Abstract:

In 2009, a multi-scale seismic tomography experiment was conducted on the Endeavour segment of the Juan de Fuca Ridge aboard the R/V Marcus G. Langseth. Ocean bottom seismometers were deployed at 64 sites and recorded 5567 shots of a 36-element, 6600 in.³ airgun array. The experiment extended 100 km along-axis and 60 km cross-axis. Two crustal tomographic analyses have previously been completed using data from the experiment. First, 93,000 manually picked crustal refraction arrivals (Pg) were used to develop a three-dimensional model of crustal velocity and thickness in the upper crust (Weekly et al. 2014). Second, this model was used as the starting model in an analysis that incorporated ~19,000 Moho reflection arrivals (PmP) for non-ridge crossing paths to image lower crustal velocity structure and crustal thickness off-axis. A key feature of this model is a ~0.5-1 km increase in crustal thickness beneath a bathymetric plateau that extends to either side of the central portion of the Endeavour segment. We present a tomographic inversions that incorporates ridge-crossing paths to examine spatial variations in lower crustal velocity and crustal thickness beneath the ridge axis. The preliminary results from an inversion that incorporates ~8700 manually picked ridge-crossing PmP arrival times reveals a ~10-km-wide low velocity zone extending throughout the lower crust with a velocity anomaly of -0.3 to -0.5 km/s at ≥4 km depth. This low velocity zone extends both to the north and south of the axial magma chamber reflector imaged previously beneath the central Endeavour. The inversion also shows significant variations in apparent crustal thickness along axis but additional analysis is required to understand whether these variations are well resolved.