Crustal Structure beneath the Rwenzori Region of the Albertine Rift using Ambient-Noise Tomography

Abstract:

In this study we investigate the crustal structure beneath the Rwenzori region by analyzing a 1-year ambient-noise data set recorded by a network of 33 broadband seismic stations that have operated between September 2009 and August 2011. The Rwenzori region, located between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, is part of the western (Albertine) branch of the East African Rift System (EARS). The region of study is situated between the Albert Rift and the Edward Rift segments and covers an area of approximately 120 km by 50 km.

The main objective of the seismological experiment was to address the questions of the uplift of the Rwenzori Mountains in an extensional regime and the absence of a crustal root beneath the mountain range. Any model proposed to address these questions requires the knowledge of the structure of the Rwenzori horst and surrounding rift shoulders. Previous results from local travel-time tomography revealed the presence of low-velocity anomalies in the upper crust beneath the mountain range relative to higher velocities in the surrounding shoulders. However, since the stations used in the previous study only covered the northern part of the region, the resolution of the models proposed by the body-wave tomography was very low beneath the Rwenzori Mountains. Hence, the limits of the Rwenzori horst at depth relative to the rift shoulders are still poorly known.

The main objective of our ambient-noise tomography (ANT) is to provide an explanation for the building of Rwenzori Mountains. Due to the small aperture of the seismological network, we are mainly interested in the shallow crustal structure including the boundaries between the central Rwenzori horst and the surrounding rift shoulders as well as the variations in the thickness of the sedimentary basins. We expect that the ANT images will be able to delineate the boundaries between the main tectonic features including the limits of the Rwenzori horst at depth.