Combined teleseismic surface wave and receiver function analysis of the crust and upper mantle of Madagascar

Abstract:

The continental crust and upper mantle velocity structure beneath Madagascar remained poorly constrained until recent deployments of broadband seismic instrumentation across the island. The MACOMO (MAdagascar, COmoros and MOzambique), RHUM-RUM (Réunion Hotspot and Upper Mantle - Réunions Unterer Mantel) and the Madagascar Seismic Profile experiments have opened up this region to be studied in detail for the first time. The island is an amalgamation of an Archean craton, associated with the Western Dhawar craton of southern India, and a series of Proterozoic terranes that comprise the backbone of the island (Tucker et al., 2010). A receiver-function analysis has provided both the first Moho depth measurements and spatially discrete 1-D shear velocity results that matched well with known tectonic regions. To provide a more continuous 2-D and 3-D velocity structure map, teleseismic surface wave analysis is employed. Using Helmholtz tomography as implemented by the ASWMS package (Ge, Gaherty and Hutko; 2014), we are able to map phase velocities from the cross-correlation of station pairs at periods 20–100 s. At periods 20–40 s our results compare well with ambient noise analysis results (see poster by Wysession et al. (this meeting)). The prominent features of these results are a distinct low phase-velocity sector beneath the central Itasy region, with a secondary low phase-velocity region to the north of the island. Both the central part of the island and the northern region have experienced geothermal activity in recent times as well as volcanic activity within the last 10,000 years. This may suggest that the crust and underlying mantle in these regions remains at relatively higher temperatures than the surrounding rock. Combining this information with receiver-function analysis, we jointly invert our data for the shear velocity structure. These analyses will constrain the upper mantle seismic velocities in the region, allowing further analysis from body waves to probe the transition zone and determine whether or not these low-velocity zones extend into the deep mantle.